A Neo-Art Nouveau wrought iron bed by artist Nat Turnbull

This year, I have spent so much time talking to people who are building, collecting and commissioning things in the Gulf. Developers, hotel groups, collectors, artists, architects. Every conversation is slightly different, but I keep hearing versions of the same question: what should we put here?

And I have started wondering whether that is the right question to begin with.

I understand the temptation. You have spent years developing a project, the architecture is taking shape, the interiors are beautiful, the materials have been chosen, and eventually there are walls or spaces that need something on them. So you start looking at artists. You make a selection. You choose something that feels right with the room.

There is nothing wrong with that.

But sometimes I walk into these spaces and feel that the art has been asked to do very little beyond making the room look better.

And I find that a little sad.

Because a great artwork can do so much more than that.

It can tell you something about where you are. It can introduce you to an artist you would never have found yourself. It can make you think about something you had not thought about before. It can carry a memory. It can start a conversation. It can make a room feel like it belongs to someone rather than to a brand.

This has been on my mind, particularly in the Gulf.

There is so much happening here at the moment. The cultural landscape is changing quickly, and I don’t think we have fully understood yet what that means for the way we build and experience luxury.

For years, the region was very good at importing the world’s best. The best designers, the best materials, the best hotels, the best names. And it made sense. It was part of building a new kind of city and putting the Gulf firmly on the global map.

But I think we are entering a different moment now.

The question is no longer simply whether a project can look international.

It is whether it can feel like it belongs here.

That is a much harder question.

And it changes the way I think about art.

If I am looking at a hotel in Dubai, for example, I don’t want the artwork to simply make the lobby more impressive. I want to understand why those artists are there. I want there to be some thought behind the choices, even if the guest never consciously notices it. Perhaps there is a connection to the history of the city, to the landscape, to a particular craft, to a story that has been passed down, or simply to a contemporary way of looking at the Gulf that feels true to this moment.

It doesn’t have to be obvious.

Actually, I prefer when it isn’t.

The same is true with a private collection.

The collections I love most are not necessarily the ones filled with the most recognisable names. They are the ones where I can feel the person behind the collection. You can sense what they are curious about, what they have fallen in love with, what they discovered early, what they keep coming back to.

There is a life behind the objects.

That is what makes collecting interesting to me.

Five things I would ask before choosing a single artwork

After enough years of doing this, I have developed a few questions that I now ask almost automatically. They are simple, but they can completely change the way you approach a project.

1. What does this place have to say?

Before looking at artists, I would spend time understanding the place itself. Its history, its surroundings, the people who will use it, and the reason it exists. If you cannot answer this, it is very difficult to make an intelligent decision about what belongs there.

2. Are we choosing this because we love it or because it looks right?

These are not always the same thing. Something can match the room perfectly and still have very little to contribute. I would rather see a work that creates a little tension than one that disappears completely into the beautiful interior.

3. What is the relationship between the artist and the place?

It doesn’t need to be literal. An artist does not have to be from the Gulf to have something meaningful to say about it. But there should be a reason for the connection. I always want to know what that reason is.

4. Would we still choose it if nobody knew the artist’s name?

This is one I use often with collectors. Remove the reputation, the gallery, the auction results, the Instagram following. Look at the work again. Do you still want it? Sometimes the answer tells you a lot.

5. Will this still mean something in 10 years?

Not everything needs to be timeless. I actually like things that belong very clearly to their moment. But there is a difference between something being contemporary and something being fashionable. I want to know whether the work has enough substance to stay interesting after the mood around it has changed.

I think we sometimes forget this because luxury has become so visual. We see so much every day that it is easy to confuse recognition with meaning. A famous name, a beautiful object, and a spectacular sculpture can immediately communicate a certain level of status.

But once everyone has access to the same names, the same references and the same visual language, they stop being enough.

What becomes interesting is the thinking behind them.

I have been learning this again and again through my work this year.

Atelier and Stories is often brought into projects because someone needs artists or wants to build a collection. But the work I am most interested in is what happens before that. Sitting with the client and understanding what they are actually trying to create, what matters to them, what they want people to feel, what story is worth telling, and what kind of cultural world they want to be part of.

Then we go looking.

Sometimes that means finding an artist who has never worked in the region before. Sometimes it means commissioning something specifically for a place. Sometimes it means building a collection slowly, around a very personal idea rather than around a shopping list.

This is the world I am building with Atelier and Stories.

I don’t want us to be another company that simply sources beautiful things for beautiful spaces.

I want us to sit a little earlier in the conversation.

To think about culture before decoration. About the story before the object. About the person before the collection. About the place before the artwork.

That is also why I am turning Atelier and Stories into something bigger than a consultancy. I am building a Cultural House around the things I have spent my life working with: art, collecting, design, architecture, places, people and the ideas that connect them.

A place for conversations, research, artists, collectors and projects.

A place that looks closely at what is changing in the Gulf and asks what it means, rather than simply reporting what is happening.

Because I think there is a very interesting cultural story being written here right now.

And I want Atelier and Stories to be part of writing it.

Not by adding more things to the room.

By helping decide which things are worth putting there in the first place.

Until next,

Daniela

Curator of Meaningful Things
Atelier and Stories

Take Over Milan, a 2024 installation in Milan by artist Andrés Reisinger

I think the best galleries are about to become more important than ever.

But the old gallery model?

That’s another story.

Something is changing, and I don’t think the art world is talking about it honestly enough.

The gallery is not dead.

The model is being questioned.

Look at the numbers.

In 2025, 205 galleries publicly reported significant changes to their businesses.

51 closed.

But 85 were new ventures or new branches.

Read that again.

More businesses were being created or expanded than closed.

London alone saw around two dozen galleries open or expand in the previous 18 months.

So no.

This is not simply a story about galleries dying.

It is a story about galleries being forced to change. And I think that is much more interesting.

The collector has changed.

The collector I see today does not necessarily want to walk into a white cube, look at twelve paintings, and wait for someone to explain why they matter.

They might discover an artist on Instagram.

Follow them for six months.

Watch their studio videos.

Read an interview.

See them collaborate with a fashion brand.

Visit their studio.

Then buy directly.

Or through a gallery.

Or through an advisor.

Or at an art fair.

Or through someone they trust.

The journey is no longer linear.

The 2025 Art Basel and UBS collecting survey found that 83% of HNW collectors still bought through galleries or dealers, but that number had fallen from 95% in 2023.

At the same time, 51% of collectors who bought through dealers had purchased something through Instagram without seeing it in person.

The gallery is still there. But it is no longer the only door.

I believe that distinction matters.

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And the younger generation is not waiting for permission.

This is the part I find most exciting.

Gen Z and Millennials are not walking away from collecting.

They are expanding what collecting means.

The latest Art Basel and UBS survey found that Gen Z collectors allocated an average 26% of their wealth to art in 2025.

They also showed much broader collecting behavior across digital art, design, fashion, classic cars, jewellery and other forms of collectible culture.

Millennials showed particularly strong interest in design, decorative art and jewellery.

Gen Z showed the strongest participation in digital art and film/video.

This tells me something.

The younger collector does not necessarily see a wall between art and the rest of culture.

We created that wall.

They don’t seem particularly interested in maintaining it.

And perhaps they are right.

So what is a gallery for?

This is the question I would ask every gallery owner today.

Not:

“How do we sell more?”

But:

“Why do we need to exist?”

If the answer is

“To give artists a place to exhibit.”

That is no longer enough.

If the answer is

“To sell art.”

That is definitely no longer enough.

Because the internet can distribute art.

Social media can create attention.

Art fairs can create access.

Auction houses can create liquidity.

Advisors can create relationships.

Artists can build their own audiences.

Collectors can discover almost anything from their phones.

So what is left?

I think the answer is

Trust.

Taste.

Context.

Access.

Reputation.

Relationships.

And most importantly:

Belief.

A great gallery does not simply sell an artwork.

It makes you believe that this artist matters.

That this moment matters.

That this work deserves to be remembered.

That is a completely different job.

The gallery of the future may look less like a shop.

We are already seeing this beginning.

A new generation of gallerists is building smaller, more flexible, and more community-driven spaces.

The Financial Times recently profiled a group of younger female gallerists in London who are creating businesses around programming, collaboration, community and international networks rather than simply replicating the traditional gallery formula.

And there is another fascinating development.

Artist representation itself is starting to split into different pieces.

New boutique agencies are emerging to handle things galleries traditionally handled, such as career strategy, brand collaborations and public commissions.

Some are taking a much smaller percentage of an artist’s income than the traditional 50% gallery split.

That should make every gallery owner stop for a moment.

Because the artist is asking a new question too.

“What exactly am I getting for 50%?”

That is a very uncomfortable question.

But it is a necessary one.

I think the next gallery will be a platform.

Not just a space.

A platform for an artist’s entire world.

Exhibitions.

Studio visits.

Books.

Films.

Residencies.

Hospitality.

Collectors’ dinners.

Architecture.

Fashion.

Design.

Public commissions.

Private collections.

Digital experiences.

Education.

Cultural conversations.

Maybe even investment.

The gallery becomes less about putting an object on a wall.

And more about building the ecosystem around the artist.

That is where I think the opportunity is.

And then there is the physical space.

Here is where I disagree with the people who think everything will become digital.

I don’t believe that.

In fact, I think physical spaces may become more valuable.

But only if they give people something they cannot get online.

A great gallery should make you want to enter.

It should make you slow down.

It should create a moment.

It should introduce you to people you would not otherwise meet.

It should make you discover something you did not know you needed.

The physical gallery becomes an experience.

Not a showroom.

And that distinction matters.

We are already seeing the value of physical cultural spaces being tested from the other side too.

SF Camerawork, a respected photography institution in San Francisco, is closing after 52 years, citing rising operating costs, declining public funding, and a changing philanthropic environment.

That is not a warning that physical culture has no future.

It is a warning that having a physical space is no longer enough to guarantee relevance.

You have to earn the room.

Here is my assumption for the next 10 years.

The number of galleries may grow.

But the number of traditional galleries may shrink.

More artists will build audiences before they ever sign with a gallery.

More artists will have multiple forms of representation.

More collectors will discover artists outside traditional channels.

More galleries will become cultural brands.

More will collaborate with hotels, developers, fashion houses, architects and private collectors.

More will operate internationally without opening five physical spaces.

And the best galleries will become extremely selective.

Not bigger.

Better.

In 20 years, I think the word “gallery” may mean something completely different.

Maybe it will be a physical space.

Maybe it will be a digital platform.

Maybe it will be an agency.

Maybe it will be a private network of collectors.

Maybe it will be a cultural house.

Maybe it will be all of them.

But I don’t think the future gallery will be defined by how much art it has on its walls.

It will be defined by who trusts it.

Who wants to be discovered through it.

Who wants to collect through it.

Who wants to enter its world.

And who believes that when this gallery says:

“Pay attention to this artist.”

You should.

That is a very different business.

And honestly?

I think it is a much more exciting one.

The question I would leave you with

If an artist can now build an audience without a gallery...

If a collector can discover and buy art without walking into one...

If an advisor can connect artist and collector...

If Instagram can create demand...

If an auction house can sell almost anything...

What is the gallery’s unfair advantage?

Because that is the question every gallery should be answering now.

Not in five years.

Now.

The galleries that find the answer will not disappear.

They will become more powerful.

The ones that don’t?

The market will answer for them.

Daniela

Curator of Meaningful Things
Atelier and Stories

Im Bilderbuchmuseum (1991) by artist Quint Buchholz.

I don’t really like following trends.

Maybe because I’ve been around long enough to see most of them come and go.

I remember when everything had to be minimal. Then maximal. Then beige. Then warm beige. Then everything had to look old, handmade, Mediterranean, Italian, Japanese, whatever the internet had decided was desirable that month.

The same thing happens in art.

One year everyone is looking at abstraction. Then figurative painting comes back. Then ceramics. Then collectible design. Then suddenly everyone is talking about craft.

And hotels are not so different.

You see one beautiful hotel somewhere and, six months later, you start seeing the same chairs, the same stone, the same colours, the same books, the same idea of what “cultural” is supposed to look like.

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This is the part I find interesting.

Not the trend itself.

Why are we suddenly attracted to it?

What changed?

Because I don’t think people wake up one morning and collectively decide they like brown, or marble, or old furniture, or contemporary art.

Something usually happens underneath.

Maybe we are tired of everything looking perfect.

Maybe we are tired of buying things that were designed primarily to photograph well.

Maybe we want to feel something again.

You can see this in the growing interest in craft, materiality and objects with a human hand behind them.

You can also see it in the art market. The latest Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report estimates that the global art market grew 4% in 2025 to around $59.6 billion, after two consecutive years of decline.

But what interests me more than the number is where attention is going.

Collectors are not always thinking in neat categories anymore.

Art, design, jewellery, photography, fashion, furniture.

The boundaries are becoming much less important.

And I think that says something about how taste is changing.

People are becoming more interested in the world around the object.

Who made it.

Where it came from.

Why it exists.

Whether it has a story.

Whether it will still mean something to them ten years from now.

This is also why I find the current obsession with “cultural relevance” a little amusing.

Everyone wants to be culturally relevant now.

Hotels want it.

Developers want it.

Luxury brands want it.

Even buildings want it.

But culture doesn’t work like a marketing campaign.

You can’t add an artist, put some books on a table and call the place cultural.

You can’t buy the visual language of a generation and expect to understand the generation.

Culture is much slower than that.

And sometimes I think the more aggressively a brand tries to look current, the faster it dates itself.

Because trends have a strange habit.

They start as something genuine.

Someone does something differently because they have a reason to.

Then people notice.

Then other people copy it.

Then brands package it.

Then everyone talks about it.

And eventually it becomes a look.

By that point, whatever was interesting about it has usually disappeared.

This is why I am much more interested in what comes after the trend.

What happens when everyone has discovered the same artist?

What happens when every luxury hotel has an art program?

What happens when every residential project has a “curated collection”?

What happens when handmade becomes the new mass-produced?

And perhaps the more uncomfortable question is, what happens when everyone starts trying to look authentic?

I don’t think the answer is to avoid trends completely.

Trends can tell us a lot.

They are signals.

I just don’t think we should confuse the signal with the story.

If everyone suddenly wants natural stone, perhaps the story isn’t stone.

Maybe it’s a desire for permanence.

If people are surrounding themselves with old objects, perhaps it’s not nostalgia.

Maybe it’s a reaction to a world that is moving too quickly.

If collectors are buying across art, design and fashion, perhaps they are not looking for categories anymore.

Maybe they are simply looking for things that feel like them.

That is the part I want to understand.

Because once you understand what is underneath the trend, you don’t really need to follow the trend anymore.

You can make your own decisions.

You can choose the artist who makes sense for the place, not the artist everyone is talking about.

You can choose the material because it belongs there, not because it is everywhere.

You can create a hotel that has a point of view instead of one that looks like it belongs on the same Pinterest board as twenty others.

And you can build a collection that actually says something about the person collecting it.

To me, that is where taste becomes interesting.

Not when it is fashionable.

When it becomes personal.

So perhaps the question isn’t really:

What is trending?

Perhaps it is:

What are people trying to move away from?

And then, more importantly:

What are they moving towards?

That is usually where the interesting story begins.

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I’m Daniela, co-founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy and curatorial practice working with collectors, developers, hospitality groups and brands. I bring art and collectible design into the spaces where people actually live, and help build collections and cultural identities with something real behind them.

I’ve always believed that culture is one of the most lasting forms of value. And that every object worth living with usually begins with a person, a reason, and a story.

INSIDE STORIES is where I think out loud about what I’m seeing across art, design, luxury and culture every Wednesday.

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Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog”

Look at any photograph ever taken of a Koons balloon dog. There is always someone in it.

Not standing next to it. Inside it. Bent across the curve of the belly, stretched along the ear, and doubled in the leg. The room is in there too. The ceiling, the windows, whoever happened to be walking past.

It is not really a sculpture of a dog. It is a mirror shaped like one.

I was reading about how the piece came about this week, and that is the part I keep returning to. Koons has always been very open about this.

He has said the surface “always reflects its environment, affirming the viewer. When you move, the abstraction happens; nothing happens without you; it’s all about you.”

Elsewhere he explained it more simply.

The polished surface gives the object a sense of perfection, but it also gives affirmation to the person looking at it.

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He started this in 1994.

Sit with the date for a moment. 1994. No front-facing camera. No endless feed. No one had yet built an entire economy around the human need to be seen.

And here was an artist creating an object whose entire technical achievement, thousands of hours of polishing until no seam survived, existed so that you could not look at it without finding yourself.

He was not predicting the future. He was noticing something that was already true about people and making it physical.

The dog was never really the point. The invitation to include yourself was.

And that idea, more than the sculpture itself, is probably the most copied thing in contemporary art.

I see it now in almost every brief connected to a public space. It rarely arrives in these exact words, but the request underneath is almost always the same.

Something reflective.

Something people will stand in front of.

A moment.

Somewhere they will want to photograph themselves.

Nobody says “make a mirror,” but that is often what is being requested.

And I understand why it works. It creates an immediate emotional response. People naturally connect with anything that shows them back to themselves.

The question is what a mirror can actually do.

A mirror confirms you. That feeling is real, and it matters. Being recognised is one of the reasons people return to places.

But confirmation has a limit.

A mirror can only return what already walked in.

It has no opinion.

It cannot challenge you, introduce you to something unfamiliar, or leave you thinking about it later on the drive home. It flatters everyone equally, and because of that, it rarely reveals anything unique.

I keep seeing spaces built entirely around this idea. They photograph beautifully. People love them for a season.

Then something strange happens.

They disappear.

Not because people dislike them. They simply stop noticing them, the way you stop noticing your own hallway mirror after a few weeks.

A room that only agrees with you becomes invisible faster than a room that asks something from you.

Here is the part that changed how I think about Koons and why I do not think he is responsible for the thing everyone copied from him.

He described the balloon dog as a Trojan horse. He spoke about it as something optimistic, like a balloon a clown would twist for a child at a birthday party, but also something carrying a deeper interior life. Something connected to myth, collective memory, and experiences larger than ourselves.

The mirror was never the whole idea.

The mirror was the entrance.

You approach because you see yourself, but once you are close, there is something else waiting for you. Ideas about childhood, desire, mortality, memory. The strange and complicated things that make us human.

Almost everyone who copied him took the entrance and left the horse behind.

That is the sentence I would put on the wall of many projects I am asked to look at.

The surface strategy without the interior life.

So much effort goes into creating the moment of arrival, but nothing exists beyond it.

What I have come to believe is that affirmation is not the mistake.

People do need to feel recognised by a space before they allow it to affect them. Recognition is what makes someone stop. It earns their attention, and that matters.

But it is the beginning, not the destination.

If the entire purpose of a commission is simply to tell people they exist, then we have spent a great deal of money reminding them of something they already know.

The spaces that stay with people always carry something more.

A story that was not theirs. A material that travelled from somewhere they have never been. A maker with a life behind the work. A detail that feels slightly unexpected and stays in their mind because they cannot quite explain why.

That is what people remember years later.

Not the lobby. Not the photograph.

The feeling that there was something more waiting there.

Koons understood both sides.

He created one of the most agreeable surfaces in modern art and filled it with ideas nobody at a birthday party would expect to find.

Everyone remembers that the horse was beautiful.

That was never the point.

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I’m Daniela, co-founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy and curation studio based in Dubai, working across the Middle East and Europe.

We connect organizations with exceptional artists, designers, and creative minds and design cultural programs that create lasting value. I believe culture is the most lasting form of value and that every object worth living with begins with a person and a story.

INSIDE STORIES is where I think out loud about what I’m seeing inside these worlds every Wednesday.

If this resonated, subscribe and share it with someone who is about to put something in a room and hopes it will say more than hello.

“A Bigger Splash” - 1967 painting by artist David Hockney

In 1967, David Hockney spent two weeks painting something that lasted two seconds.

The splash in A Bigger Splash. Thick white strokes worked in with small brushes over a flat blue ground, while the palms and the sky and the pool around it were laid down quickly and left alone. He was direct about it afterwards. “I loved the idea of painting this thing that lasts for two seconds,” he said. “It takes me two weeks to paint this event.”

Two weeks. On two seconds. Of water.

I have thought about that quote more than anything else I read this summer.

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Since he died in June, the tributes have called him the painter of happiness.

Sunshine, swimming pools, California, the good life.

It isn’t wrong, but I think it misses him almost entirely.

What made Hockney extraordinary was never the glamour of what he chose to look at. It was how much attention he was willing to give to things that did not obviously deserve it.

A splash.

An empty chair.

His mother sitting.

A road in Yorkshire he had driven a thousand times.

A checked tablecloth.

Perfection was never the point. What he painted is what happens when you look at something ordinary for much longer than is reasonable and then keep looking after the interesting part is finished.

Very little of the beauty in his work is spectacular.

A friend sitting.

A tree, across a year.

Light getting into a room in the afternoon, and the fact that it will be gone within the hour.

This is more or less my entire work and I have spent years failing to explain it in a sentence.

Atelier and Stories has never been about luxury as status.

It is about teaching people to notice.

How impressive an object is matters much less than how much attention went into it and whether it can still hold yours ten years from now.

Something I keep noticing this season, and social media is not the whole of it.

We have never shared more of our lives, and we have rarely felt less seen.

Luxury, design, hospitality, personal brands, all of it has drifted toward performance.

The room photographed before anyone arrives.

The terrace laid for guests who are not coming.

Those pictures work because the emptiness is an invitation and you put yourself into it, which is a real and useful thing for an image to do.

I work in a part of the world that builds faster than almost anywhere, so we make more of them than most. I have sat in those meetings and approved those shot lists.

Perhaps loneliness now has less to do with being alone.

It comes from living inside carefully arranged pictures that leave very little room for anything real to happen in them.

Hockney composed too, and this is the part that stays with me.

A Bigger Splash came from a photograph in a manual about how to build a swimming pool. His most valuable painting was assembled from separate photographs taken in the south of France and in a London park. He was constructing a life rather than recording one.

He simply never pretended anyone was in the pool.

Summer does something to all of this.

For most of the year the noise is useful.

Meetings, deadlines, movement, the reassurance of being needed by somebody.

Then August arrives, the calendar empties out, and the questions that were easy to walk past in March are just sitting there with nothing in front of them.

Most people treat that as something to get through.

I think it is probably the most productive season we have, and we protect it worse than any other part of the year.

Hockney’s evidence for this is hanging in London right now.

Alone in a farmhouse in Normandy in his eighties, through the pandemic, he drew the same view over and over as the seasons moved across it.

What came out of that is a frieze ninety meters long, made in the least eventful year of his life, from a garden he could not leave.

Nothing was happening at all. That was the condition he needed.

I notice the opposite instinct in founders constantly, and I am not exempt.

Most people believe visibility is the work.

Post, appear, network, produce, repeat.

It generates plenty, and most of it is a variation on whatever everyone else is already saying, because nobody has ever had an original thought in a group chat.

Every brand I actually admire was built by someone who spent a long time alone before asking anybody to pay attention.

Hockney was never against new tools, which is the part of this I find most useful.

Oil, acrylic, photography, photocollage, colour photocopiers, fax machines, and then an iPad through his seventies and eighties, thousands of drawings, delighted by all of it. He changed instruments roughly every decade for sixty years and was never once sentimental about the one he put down.

Which makes me think we have been describing his work slightly wrongly, the June tributes included.

Paint, the camera, the screen, none of those were the medium.

They were instruments.

The medium was attention, and everything else was whatever happened to be nearest to hand.

Information is now effectively infinite and nearly free.

Making an image costs nothing and takes seconds.

What has become scarce is what he was doing in that Berkeley studio. Two weeks, one splash, small brushes, no particular reason.

I suspect attention is going to be the most valuable creative capability of the next ten years. Nobody I know is training for it, myself included on most days.

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His final new work has been at the Serpentine since March.

Five still lifes and five portraits.

The portraits are of his family and his carers, the people who were actually in the room with him at eighty-eight. The same checked tablecloth runs through all ten pictures.

The most ordinary object he owned, painted ten times.

That is what it looks like when someone stops searching for a subject, because what is in front of him has become enough.

The show closes on the twenty-third of August. He died on the eleventh of June, at home in London, and the work stayed up through the summer.

Every summer asks the same question, and it tends to ask it somewhere in the second half of August.

When the noise stops, what is actually left?

I keep returning to Hockney, and it has very little to do with the pools.

He gave ordinary things far more attention than they were owed for sixty years.

That turns out to be one of the most generous things a person can do.

Two weeks. Two seconds. Small brushes.

I’m Daniela, co-founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy and curatorial practice. I work with collectors, developers, hospitality and brands, bringing art and collectible design into the spaces where people actually live, and helping them build collections and cultural identities with meaning behind them. I believe culture is the most lasting form of value and that every object worth living with begins with a person and a story.

INSIDE STORIES is where I think out loud about what I’m seeing inside these worlds, every Wednesday. If this resonated, subscribe and share it with someone who lives with art, or should.

“What am I”—a 2015 painting by Emma Hopkins.

This week I sat with an artist at the very beginning of her career. We were supposed to talk about her work. We ended up talking about her childhood.

She paints in a way many people find difficult. Dark, heavy, bold. The kind of work that makes people pause at the door of a room and decide whether they are ready to walk in.

She told me where it comes from.

Experiences from when she was a child, things she carried alone for most of her life. She kept them inside for years.

Now, she said, the time feels right to let them out.

I have been thinking about that conversation ever since. Less about the paintings, more about the years before the paintings.

In my world, provenance is almost a sacred word.

Collectors ask for it before they ask for anything else.

Where has the work been?

Who owned it?

Which gallery, which exhibition, which catalog?

We trace the life of an object with the seriousness of a notary because the history of a work is part of its value.

But we always start counting too late.

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The provenance of her paintings did not begin the day she first stretched a canvas.

It began decades earlier, in rooms none of us will ever see, in years she spent holding something she could not yet say. Those years look like silence from the outside. From the inside, they were doing the work long before she was.

The art world has a word for artists at her stage.

Emerging.

And the word says a lot about how we think.

Emerging into what, exactly?

Into visibility, into the market, into a booth at a fair. As if the story only becomes real at the moment we get to watch it.

I keep hearing that serious collectors buy the artist, not the artwork.

For a long time I thought that was a polite way of saying they buy a name.

After this conversation I think it means something far more uncomfortable. Buying the artist means accepting the whole person, including the parts that are hard to look at. Her paintings are dark because her life asked her to carry something dark. If you want the power of the work, childhood comes with it.

Maybe that explains why so much art today manages to be pleasant and forgettable at the same time.

We ask artists for work that fits. Above a sofa, in a lobby, behind a reception desk. Work that behaves. And an artwork can only be as honest as the life behind it is allowed to be.

What moved me most was her sense of timing. Not a launch, not a strategy. Simply a person deciding that a silence had lasted long enough. There is no fair calendar for that, no season, no advisor who can tell you when. It arrives on its own.

Her first paintings will be called new work. They are the oldest thing about her.

I’m Daniela, co-founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy and curatorial practice. I work with collectors, developers, hospitality and brands, bringing art and collectible design into the spaces where people actually live and helping them build collections and cultural identities with meaning behind them. I believe culture is the most lasting form of value and that every object worth living with begins with a person and a story.

INSIDE STORIES is where I think out loud about what I’m seeing inside these worlds, every Wednesday. If this resonated, subscribe and share it with someone who lives with art or should.

There was one number I couldn’t stop thinking about this week.

Almost half a billion dollars.

That’s the value of the contract recently awarded for the construction of the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art in Diriyah.

Not for the collection.

Not for acquisitions.

Not for curatorial research.

For the building itself.

I don’t mention this as a criticism. Quite the opposite.

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What is happening across Saudi Arabia is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent decades. Museums, biennales, foundations, and entire cultural districts are emerging with an ambition and speed that few countries would even attempt.

AlUla is preparing to open a contemporary art museum designed by Lina Ghotmeh.

Diriyah has already established its contemporary art biennale.

Across the region, culture is increasingly being treated as national infrastructure rather than a secondary investment.

That shift is remarkable.

It is also forcing us to ask questions that architecture alone cannot answer.

When does a building become a cultural institution?

We often speak about museums as though they begin with architecture, but history suggests the opposite.

The Louvre did not become one of the world’s great museums because someone designed an extraordinary building. The palace had already existed for centuries before it opened to the public in 1793, and its collections had been assembled over generations. By the time visitors crossed its threshold, history was already embedded in its walls. The institution inherited depth. It did not have to create it.

Today, the sequence is often reversed.

The building arrives first, while everything that gives it cultural meaning is expected to follow.

The collection is assembled.

The exhibitions are organised.

The audience is cultivated.

A reputation is built.

All of this happens after the architecture has been completed, as though meaning can be delivered in the next phase of the project.

Sometimes that approach succeeds spectacularly.

Bilbao remains the example everyone returns to, and for good reason.

When the Guggenheim opened in 1997, it transformed an industrial city into an international cultural destination almost overnight. The impact was so significant that it entered the vocabulary of urban development as the “Bilbao Effect.”

For many cities, it became proof that architecture could reshape identity and economic growth at the same time.

But I have always thought we misunderstand what Bilbao actually demonstrated.

The museum did not succeed because architecture possesses some magical ability to generate culture.

It succeeded because the building was only one expression of a much broader cultural vision. Behind Frank Gehry’s architecture stood an institution with curatorial credibility, an international network, a serious collection and a long-term commitment to producing exhibitions that people wanted to experience.

The architecture attracted the world’s attention.

The institution gave people a reason to return.

That distinction matters because it changes the lesson entirely.

Architecture can create visibility.

It cannot create relevance.

One can be commissioned.

The other has to be earned.

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As someone who works in cultural strategy, I find this important as more cities invest in cultural infrastructure.

The conversation often revolves around architects, construction budgets, and opening dates, while the more difficult questions receive far less attention.

What story will this institution tell that cannot be told anywhere else?

What collection will justify its existence twenty years from now?

Why should the people who live there feel that this museum belongs to them rather than simply existing beside them?

Those questions have no contractor.

They have no completion certificate.

They cannot be accelerated by increasing the budget.

They require judgment, consistency, and time.

The contract in Diriyah will undoubtedly deliver an extraordinary building, and I have no doubt that it will become an architectural landmark. But whether it becomes an institution that shapes cultural life for generations depends on something entirely different. That work begins long before the opening ceremony and continues long after the last construction crane has disappeared from the skyline.

Perhaps that is the distinction we should pay more attention to.

Buildings can be completed.

Institutions are cultivated.

The two are often spoken about as though they were the same thing.

They never have been.

I’m Daniela, Co-Founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy practice working with developers, collectors and family offices across the Gulf and beyond.

My work sits in the space before a project opens to the public. I help shape the cultural narrative, curatorial direction, and strategic identity that give places meaning beyond their architecture. Because the most valuable cultural projects are remembered not simply for how they looked on opening day but for what they came to represent over the decades that followed.

INSIDE STORIES is a weekly publication exploring the decisions that shape culture, design and the future of our cities. If this essay resonated with you, I’d be delighted to have you join next week’s conversation.

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A few weeks ago, I found myself standing inside an artist’s studio, surrounded by a body of work that immediately had my attention.

It had presence.

It had intention.

It had the kind of depth that makes you pause before moving to the next piece.

The work belonged in serious collections.

During our conversation, I asked the artist a question I often ask.

“What is this entire body of work really about?”

Not one single piece.

Not the technique.

Not the materials.

The bigger idea connecting everything together.

He smiled and answered with a sentence I have heard many times throughout my years working with artists.

“I’d rather let the work speak for itself.”

I understand this instinct.

There is something beautiful about believing that the work should stand alone. That the emotion, the craftsmanship, and the intention behind it should be enough.

But over time, I have learned something different.

The work rarely speaks for itself.

Not because it lacks power.

Not because it needs explanation.

But because great work exists within a larger context. And without that context, even the most powerful ideas can remain invisible.

History has shown us this many times.

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Consider Vincent van Gogh.

Today, his name represents one of the most recognized artistic visions in the world. His paintings are considered priceless, studied, and admired across generations.

Yet during his lifetime, the world barely recognized his genius.

The paintings were there.

The talent was there.

The vision was there.

What changed was not the work itself, but the understanding around it.

Through his letters, Van Gogh revealed his thoughts, his questions, his struggles, and the philosophy behind what he was creating. Those words allowed people to enter his world and understand that the paintings were not isolated objects, but fragments of a much larger vision.

The artwork was the evidence.

The story was the connection.

Together, they created meaning.

This is something I see constantly when working with artists.

Collectors rarely stop at the object.

A beautiful piece can capture attention in a moment.

But when someone makes the decision to invest, to follow an artist, and to believe in their future, the conversation inevitably moves deeper.

They want to understand the person behind the work.

What is this artist exploring?

What question continues to appear throughout their practice?

Is this a collection of beautiful works, or is there a clear artistic journey unfolding?

Because collectors are not only buying what exists today.

They are investing in the possibility of what comes next.

And that possibility is built through clarity.

One of the biggest misconceptions artists have is that defining their vision is a communication exercise. Something external. Something related to branding or marketing.

I see it differently.

Understanding your own vision is part of the creative process itself.

Before you can invite others into your world, you need to understand the world you are building.

This is why I often encourage artists to write about their work, even if nobody else ever sees those words.

Write about why you return to certain subjects.

Write about the questions that continue to follow you.

Write about what you refuse to create.

Write about what fascinates you, challenges you, or makes you uncomfortable.

This is not about creating content.

It is about creating clarity.

And clarity eventually becomes visible everywhere.

In the way you present your work.

In the conversations you have with collectors.

In the exhibitions you choose.

In the opportunities you attract.

There is another exercise I often share with artists, and it is one of the most difficult.

Introduce yourself without mentioning your medium.

Do not say painter.

Do not say sculptor.

Do not describe your technique.

Instead, answer this:

What are you investigating?

What perspective do you bring into the world?

What is the question behind everything you create?

Many artists struggle with this.

Not because they lack talent.

Often, it is because they have spent years mastering their craft, but very little time putting language around the deeper meaning behind it.

And yet, that language is not there to impress others.

It is there to anchor yourself.

Because the artists who create lasting careers are not always the ones with the strongest technical ability.

They are often the ones who understand their own voice deeply enough that others can recognize it too.

A gallery can introduce your work.

A collector can acquire it.

A curator can place it.

But nobody can build the meaning behind your practice for you.

That begins with the artist.

The work matters.

But the vision behind the work is what allows people to remember it.

So, I leave you with this question:

If someone asked you what your work is truly about, beyond the materials, beyond the aesthetics, beyond the technique...

Could you answer in one sentence?

And if you cannot yet, perhaps that sentence is not something you need to invent.

Perhaps it is something you need to discover.

At Atelier and Stories, this is the work I am deeply passionate about.

I collaborate with artists, designers, and creative founders who have a strong body of work but want to build the clarity, positioning, and strategic direction needed to grow their impact internationally.

Because exceptional creativity deserves more than attention.

It deserves the right context, the right narrative, and the right opportunities to reach the people who can truly understand its value.

If you feel your work has evolved, but your story and positioning have not yet caught up, I would love to start a conversation.

Sometimes, the most important step is simply finding the words that reveal what has always been there.

The tower is iconic before ground is broken. Last month I counted the word four times in one sales deck.

We talk about buildings as if they decide their own fate. As if lasting were a property of the design, like the glass or the height.

I’ve stopped believing that. Buildings don’t say no. Someone inside them does.

The building I think about most made its most important decision before a single drawing existed. And it was made inside a family.

In 1954, Samuel Bronfman — the man who had built Seagram into one of the largest liquor empires in the world — approved a safe design for his headquarters on Park Avenue. Comfortable, profitable, forgettable.

His daughter Phyllis was twenty-seven, living in Paris. When the drawings reached her, she wrote back one word, five times.

No no no no no.

The letter went on for pages. She told her father that a company like his owed the city something better, that he should put up a building that expressed the best of the society he lived in.

Here’s the part of the story that usually gets left out. Her father didn’t dismiss her.

He gave her the job.

Phyllis Lambert became director of planning for the project. She led the search that ended with Mies van der Rohe, and she defended every expensive refusal that followed.

Mies pushed the tower a hundred feet back from the street and left almost half the land empty. A granite plaza, on Park Avenue, with nothing to rent.

Architect Mies van der Rohe with the maquette for the Seagram Building, co-designed with Philip Johnson.

People called it a waste. Then New York rewrote its zoning code around it, and the whole city started copying that emptiness.

Even the art refused something. Rothko was commissioned to paint murals for the restaurant. He ate there once, understood his paintings would end up as a backdrop for people showing off, and gave all the money back.

Seventy years later, the emptiest part of that plot is still the most valuable thing on it. But none of it — not the plaza, not Mies, not the bronze — happens without the first decision. A founder let his youngest voice say no and then trusted her with the answer.

I think about this story constantly from where I work. Because the Gulf is the closest thing the modern world has to that Park Avenue moment – multiplied.

Nowhere else does family enterprise build at the scale of cities. Nearly seventy percent of private wealth in the GCC sits inside family businesses. And the region is now living through the largest generational handover in its history — an estimated trillion dollars moving from founders to their children by 2030.

Most commentary treats this as a finance story. Succession planning, governance, asset allocation.

I read it as a culture story.

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Because somewhere in those families, right now, a drawing is circulating.

A safe design for a tower, approved by a founder who built everything from nothing and has earned the right to be comfortable.

And somewhere at that table sits a daughter or a son who has seen enough of the world to know the difference between what impresses and what lasts.

Whether they write the letter — and whether anyone lets them — will shape what these cities feel like in fifty years more than any architect will.

The founders’ generation asked, ‘Can it be built?’ The skyline is the answer. That question is settled.

The next generation inherits a different one. Not what can we add — everything can be added now. What should it refuse?

New York in 1954 had hundreds of towers and one Seagram Building. The difference wasn’t budget — Bronfman’s rivals had money too. The difference was a twenty-seven-year-old who was allowed to say no, five times, to the most powerful man she knew.

So here’s my question – not for the architects this time, but for the families, investors and founders reading this: when the safe design lands on your table, who sitting around it has permission to write that letter?

I’m Daniela, co-founder of Atelier and Stories.

I advise developers, collectors, hotels, and family offices on how to use art and collectible design to give their spaces an identity, because people remember how a place made them feel long after they’ve forgotten how it looked.

My work moves between Europe, the USA and Dubai and always starts with the same question: what should people feel when they walk in?

If you’re in the process of something that deserves more than a safe answer, reply to this email or write to me at daniela@atelierandstories.com

I read every email.

Giovanni Lombardini is one of them.

He lives in Romagna, in northern Italy. He has stayed close to where he was born. And still, when you look at his work across decades, it does not feel still at all. It feels like movement, but not outward. More like going deeper into the same place, again and again, until it starts to reveal something else.

That is what stayed with me.

Because there is something almost radical in that today. In a world that pushes for visibility, speed, and constant output, there is a different kind of intelligence in staying close to one question and not rushing to finish it.

It changes the way you think about art.

It stops being about “what is new” and becomes more about attention. How long you can stay with something without turning it into a conclusion. How much you can let it stay open.

That is where Rothko comes to mind for me. Not as a reference, but as a feeling. You are not looking at a painting in the usual way. You are inside a field of experience. Your perception slows down, and suddenly the distance between you and the work becomes very thin.

James Turrell takes that even further. He removes the object completely and works directly with perception itself.

Lombardini is part of that same conversation, but he stays grounded in place. He does not try to escape it. He works from it. Romagna is not just background here, it is part of the thinking. The light, the rhythm, the repetition of seeing the same horizon over time.

And I think that matters culturally.

Because most visual culture today is built on distance. You look at something, you move on. You scroll, you consume, you move again. Very few ask you to stay.

This kind of work does the opposite. It asks you to stay longer than is comfortable at first. Not because it is complicated, but because it is quiet in a way that changes your attention.

And over time, that starts to matter more than form or style.

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Fifty years of work makes this even clearer. It stops feeling like evolution or experimentation. It feels more like continuity. One long conversation with the same question, without the need to resolve it quickly.

There is a line by the critic Leonardo Conti that I keep thinking about. He describes it as a journey where departure and return happen at the same time. I read that as a way of saying you are never really leaving anything behind. You are just seeing it from deeper inside.

That is probably the simplest way to describe what stays with me here.

It is not about the artwork as an object. It is about what happens to your attention when you stay in front of something that refuses to be consumed quickly.

That shift is subtle but real.

And it is becoming more relevant, especially when we think about how people experience spaces today. Collectors, architects, hospitality. Everyone is designing environments, but not everyone is thinking about what those environments do to perception over time.

Because the real question is not what you put in a room.

It is what the room starts doing to you when you stop rushing through it.

Daniela Gagliano is the co-founder of Atelier and Stories, a cultural strategy and art advisory studio operating across Dubai, Europe and New York. The studio works with developers, hospitality groups, and collectors to place art within broader cultural and spatial thinking. Giovanni Lombardini is part of the studio’s artist roster. In 2025, Atelier and Stories introduced his work to the Gulf during Dubai Design Week in collaboration with a leading local partner. Every work presented was placed.

More exposure.
More content.
More platforms.
More followers.
More collaborations.
More visibility.

But I think we are entering a completely different era now.

Because everywhere I look, I see incredibly talented artists, designers, creative founders, and brands producing beautiful work while still struggling to create real connection, long-term growth, or cultural relevance.

And the problem is often not the quality of the work.

It’s the lack of clarity around identity.

We are living in a moment where audiences are overwhelmed with aesthetics.

Every day we consume thousands of images.
Perfect interiors.
Perfect campaigns.
Perfect objects.
Perfect brands.

At some point, beauty alone stops being enough.

And I think this is exactly why we are seeing such a major cultural shift across luxury, art, hospitality, collectible design, and even fashion.

People are no longer searching only for products or beautiful spaces.

They are searching for perspective.
For meaning.
For emotional resonance.
For identity.

The brands and creatives growing today are not necessarily the loudest ones.

They are the clearest ones.

The shift from consumption to emotional connection

One of the most interesting things happening right now is that consumers are becoming far more emotionally selective.

According to recent luxury consumer research, people increasingly value meaning, craftsmanship, heritage, emotional resonance, and personal identity over trend-driven consumption. (Vogue )

Even the definition of luxury itself is changing.

For years, luxury was associated with visibility.
Logos.
Status.
Excess.
Recognition.

Today, luxury is becoming quieter and more psychological.

The Washington Post recently interviewed more than 50 fashion insiders about what luxury means today, and many described it not through products but through concepts like freedom, peace, craftsmanship, intimacy, time, and emotional fulfilment. (The Washington Post)

I think this reflects something much larger happening culturally.

People are exhausted by overconsumption.
By sameness.
By trend cycles moving too fast.
By constant digital stimulation.

And because of that, they are becoming more emotionally aware of what they choose to bring into their lives and spaces.

Especially at the high end of the market.

Clients today are not only asking:
“What looks beautiful?”

They are asking:
“What feels meaningful?”
“What reflects who I am?”
“What carries a story?”
“What creates atmosphere?”
“What feels emotionally lasting?”

And honestly, this changes everything for creative businesses.

Why collectible design and art continue to grow

This is also one of the reasons why collectible design, art, and story-rich objects continue to expand globally despite economic uncertainty.

The global collectibles market was estimated at over $320 billion in 2025 and is projected to surpass $535 billion by 2033. (Grand View Research)

At the same time, the collectible design market itself is projected to grow steadily over the next decade, driven by demand for curated environments, emotional storytelling, craftsmanship, and cultural value. (Market Intel)

And I don’t think this growth is happening only because people want “luxury”.

I think it’s happening because people want emotional depth.

They want objects that feel human again.

Objects with memory.
With heritage.
With tension.
With identity.

In many ways, collectible design and art have become a response to the emotional emptiness created by mass production and digital culture.

And this is why I believe taste and discernment are becoming forms of leadership.

Not because they signal wealth.

But because they signal clarity.

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Visibility without identity creates noise

One thing I notice often with creative businesses today is that many spend enormous amounts of energy trying to stay visible while communicating very little about what they truly believe.

The work exists.
The content exists.
The visuals exist.

But the deeper perspective is missing.

And audiences can feel that immediately.

Especially now.

Because today people don’t connect only with aesthetics.
They connect with conviction.

The brands that stand out today are usually very clear about:

• what they believe

• what they reject

• what kind of world they are trying to create

• how they see culture differently

• why their work matters beyond visuals

And this doesn’t apply only to brands.

It applies to artists.
Studios.
Designers.
Hospitality concepts.
Founders.
Creative consultants.

Identity is no longer optional.

It’s infrastructure.

The future belongs to brands with emotional clarity

I believe we are entering a period where creative businesses will need to operate more like cultural voices than content machines.

And that requires depth.

Not perfection.
Not constant output.
Not trend performance.

Depth.

Because audiences today are becoming more intuitive.

They can immediately feel the difference between:

• branding and belief

• aesthetics and perspective

• visibility and substance

• trend-driven work and emotionally grounded work

And maybe this is actually positive.

Maybe we are finally moving away from the era where attention alone defined value.

Because attention is temporary.

But emotional connection creates longevity.

The creatives, brands, and studios that will grow over the next years are not necessarily the ones producing the most content.

They are the ones creating stronger emotional and cultural positioning.

The ones able to communicate not only what they create.

But why it matters.

At Atelier and Stories, this is exactly the kind of work we are deeply interested in.

Not simply helping brands, artists, hospitality concepts, or creative founders become more visible, but helping them build stronger cultural and emotional positioning.

We work at the intersection of art, design, strategy, and culture, supporting creative businesses in defining what they stand for, how they communicate, and how they create meaningful connection in a rapidly changing world.

Through cultural advisory, creative direction, brand positioning, collectible design, art curation, and strategic storytelling, we help shape identities that feel emotionally resonant, commercially relevant, and culturally lasting.

Because today, people do not only remember what you create.

They remember how you make them feel.

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Credits: @dsignincmilano @malcusa pictures by

At a certain point in a project, you can tell whether the client is buying a space or commissioning one. The conversation shifts. The questions get more specific. They want to know what the space is arguing for, how it holds together conceptually, why this material and that artist and not the alternatives.

That conversation used to be rare.

At Salone del Mobile 2026, it was the only one worth having.

The stands that drew sustained attention this year were the edited ones — built around a legible position rather than a demonstration of range. Cassina presented a coherent thesis about material continuity and how it operates inside contemporary domestic life. Faye Toogood’s collaborations, now a fixture in serious residential projects, showed what spatial discipline looks like when it originates from an artist’s logic rather than an interior decorator’s instinct. Across 5Vie, the smaller ateliers were doing the same thing: reducing, clarifying, committing. The spaces that felt resolved had all made the same decision — to remove anything that couldn’t justify its presence within a defined framework.

This is worth naming precisely, because it is easy to misread as a stylistic turn. It is a methodological one.

How collectors changed the brief

The shift in how private clients commission space has been the clearest driver of this change, and it has happened faster than most developers anticipated.

The collector profile has expanded significantly over the past five years. Alongside the established institutional collector — building a multigenerational collection with a long acquisition horizon — there is now a substantial population of founder-collectors and family office principals, particularly across the Gulf, who arrived at collecting through cultural engagement rather than inheritance. They built their fluency deliberately. They know what they are looking at. And they bring that same precision to how they commission space.

For these clients, curation and authorship are distinct categories, and they care about the difference. Curation produces a well-considered result. Authorship produces a position — one that holds across every material decision, every artwork placement, every spatial sequence. The brief reflects that distinction directly. Art advisors are now entering projects at concept stage, working alongside architects before the floor plans are fixed, because the cultural direction has to inform the spatial logic, not respond to it after the fact.

This shift is visible across the art market at an institutional level. The advisory structures that are growing fastest are the ones that moved upstream — from acquisition to strategy, from transaction to brief. The most sophisticated collectors are driving that move, and the development and hospitality sectors are following their lead. On the collectible design side, the same dynamic is happening: those pieces that hold value carry a precise cultural argument. Collectors acquire them for their fit within a defined position, and developers have started applying the same logic at scale.

The hospitality cases

Hospitality has operated as both the most ambitious testing ground for cultural positioning and the clearest illustration of what happens when the ambition exceeds the discipline.

Aman remains the foundational reference. Each property begins with a cultural thesis — site-specific, historically grounded, materially resolved — and every operational and design decision follows from that thesis. Amanjiwo was built around a reading of Javanese cosmology. That reading determined the spatial geometry, the material palette, the relationship between the built structures and the landscape. The architecture is the consequence of the argument, not the argument itself. The result is a property that communicates something specific before a guest has crossed the threshold.

Credits: @amantokio

Hauser & Wirth Somerset demonstrates what this looks like when a cultural institution applies the same methodology to a full hospitality environment. The Piet Oudolf-designed gardens, the farm-sourced kitchen, the converted farm buildings, the exhibition program — these are four expressions of a single cultural position about how serious engagement with art, land, and making can organize a way of life. The integration is complete. Nothing sits outside the framework. That is precisely why it functions as a reference point across disciplines: it shows the methodology at full scale.

The underperforming counterexamples follow one consistent pattern. Original commissions, residency programs, respected design consultancies — and a result that reads as accumulation rather than argument. The works are strong individually. The connective cultural logic is absent. When each element was decided separately, without a governing position, the space reflects that fragmentation regardless of the quality of its components.

What fashion built first

The interiors industry is approximately a decade behind fashion in applying this logic, and the fashion cases are instructive precisely because they are so well documented.

Jonathan Anderson’s repositioning of Loewe was built on a specific and consistently held set of values: craft, duration, material intelligence, a particular kind of formal strangeness. Those values were expressed with equal precision across the garments, the stores, the Craft Prize, the archive initiatives.

A Loewe store in Seoul and a Loewe store in Paris operate within the same cultural argument even when the spatial expression differs entirely. The prize — now one of the most closely watched recognitions in contemporary craft — functions as an extension of the brand’s position into the broader cultural conversation. Every piece selected advances the argument.

Aesop built the same methodology into its retail architecture before the language existed to describe it. Each store brief originated in the specific history and material culture of its neighbourhood. The stores are visually distinct from each other and immediately identifiable as the same brand because the governing position is consistent even when the execution varies. That coherence across variation is the operational definition of a cultural framework working correctly.

Three forces converging

Client sophistication is the first.

The people commissioning these projects have spent years navigating a visually saturated market. They distinguish quickly between a space that has been assembled and one that has been authored. That distinction now drives acquisition decisions, development briefs, and hospitality positioning at a level that makes cultural strategy a primary concern rather than a finishing layer.

The second is financial.

Luxury residential projects with a coherent cultural identity command documented premiums across Dubai, Miami, and prime London — premiums that are structural and consistent. Developers who have run the analysis are treating cultural direction as a value driver, with the same seriousness they apply to location and specification.

The third is operational.

A large-scale mixed-use project — residential tower, multiple architectural consultants, public art requirement, ground-floor hospitality — requires a cultural position clear enough to align decisions across every discipline and every stakeholder. The stone selection, the lighting approach, the commissioning brief for the lobby artwork, the spatial sequence through the lobby — these need a shared reference point. A strong aesthetic sensibility works at smaller scale. At this scale and with this level of complexity, a defined cultural framework is the practical tool.

The practice this produces

The projects building lasting value — in critical reception, in market performance, in how they age — are the ones that began with a cultural argument rather than a resolved aesthetic.

Cultural strategists, curators working in spatial terms, and art advisors operating at the level of concept rather than transaction are entering projects at brief stage. They sit alongside the architect. They shape the framework within which every subsequent decision is made and evaluated.

That is a different discipline from decoration. It produces a different kind of space. And the clients who have experienced the difference are the ones driving demand for it.

Atelier and Stories is a cultural studio working across art, collectible design, and spatial direction. The studio works with collectors, luxury residential developers, designers and hospitality brands to build cultural positioning from concept through completion.

Credits @joshua_vogel_sculpture

There are makers who produce beautiful things, and then there are makers who seem to understand something about matter itself.

Joshua Vogel belongs to the second category.

A sculptor, furniture designer, and craftsman based in the Hudson Valley, Joshua works across a wide range of scales and forms – from hand-carved kitchen spoons to large sculptural installations – always with the same quiet conviction that the material has something to say and that the maker's job is mostly to listen.

He is also the author of “The Artful Wooden Spoon” and co-founder of BCMT Gallery, a space dedicated to the ongoing conversation between art, craft, and design.

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Your practice spans sculptural work, furniture design, and everyday objects like hand-carved kitchen tools, all informed by a deep respect for wood and material. How do you sense form and function speaking to each other across all of that work, and how does that dialogue shape what you make?

I see that there is a difference between all of these things — furniture, objects, spaces, artwork — and certainly how people perceive them, but I approach making and designing all of it in a very similar way. It seems a simple thing to say, but being directly involved in the making of things is really important for my process. Problem solving and discovery. Satisfaction and purpose. Being involved is the root of it all.

Personally, I think that I am searching for deeper meaning and connection in my life. Bringing that search and sensibility to the things that I design or make is very much about that journey for me. It is also what I want to share.

What really makes “it” important? Is it? These are ways of thinking about things but they are also ultimately questions about the economy of life. I ask myself all the time if I am being productive. Is the sum of my efforts more, or am I consuming more than I make? Am I being a positive influence or a negative one?

You have spoken about letting the material “say what it wants to be.” How does that philosophy unfold in the studio, especially when a piece begins to diverge from the idea you first had?

I think about the language of shapes, that there is an intrinsic “language” that we recognize beyond words, something universal. I have come to think about the combination of shapes and material as “form.”

A good example of this would be a spoon shape. I can make that shape, which is easily understood by anybody, out of many materials. However, a wooden spoon is much different to make than a silver one or even a ceramic spoon. I see “Wooden Spoon” as a “form.” Material plus a shape equals form. Materials have natural rules and attributes, lessons and pathways. Forms generally become archetypes and often have deep historical precedent and traditions associated with them. I think an anthropological look at spoons across time and cultures would be a very interesting investigation in this language of shapes and the shared things that make us human.

The natural world is everything. Working “with the grain” is very much about understanding natural tendencies, orders of operations, and working within a hierarchy of materials. Rock beats scissors, but paper covers rock. Scissors beats paper. I consider myself a student of materials. I think about how wood was once a living tree, or that clay can have a shape memory. Things “want” to work a certain way, they are a certain way. These lessons reveal natural truths about the world and they cannot be faked. I can either design with wood’s natural movement in mind, for instance, or I can struggle in vain to try and stop it. The wood is generally much more patient than I am.

Credits @joshua_vogel_sculpture

Your early life in New Mexico, extensive travels, and studies in Anthropology, Art History, and Architecture seem to inform your aesthetic sensibility. What insights from those experiences continue to influence how you see and make work today?

Much of how I see the world was formed by my New Mexico beginnings. I have a deep love for the culture and history of people. New Mexico has ancient origins. It is a very diverse state that is full of rugged natural beauty and drama. It has an independent, frontier attitude, also with a strong sense of frontier community.

When I was very young, I regarded traveling and experiencing new places much like looking in a mirror. We see ourselves in our environment, we see ourselves in our family and friends. To see or find your true self, I thought, one needs to look outside of those comfortable and predictable reflections. What remains consistent from place to place must then be true.

Now that I am older, I see that there can be much value in introspection and patience, in staying put and growing roots, and that nothing remains the same. I have lived in New York now longer than I have lived in New Mexico. I find it interesting to be creatures of memory, the size and shape of it, the memory that we call home.

The Hudson Valley and its natural rhythms appear central to your creative life. Can you describe a moment where the landscape or season shifted not just your mood but the very shape or meaning of something you were making?

We have four distinct seasons here in the Hudson Valley, each with their own sweet and sour. The autumn here is unbelievable. The leaves change colors in a seasonal riot and the scale of that transformation continues to surprise me year after year. There also comes a time in the winter when all of the wood outside is frozen to the ground or, like now, covered in snow and ice. In that respect, it is hard not to be influenced by the environment and the seasonal changes here in New York.

We live in one of the world’s growing temperate forests here in the northeast of North America. The forest is alive. It is not only a wonderful place to be an artist, full of inspiration, materials, and space. It is a wonderful place to live too.

Craft often demands patience, attention, and a willingness to confront imperfection. How does your relationship with process, the unglamorous hours in the shop, inform your sense of artistic meaning or purpose?

No hours are unglamorous in the shop! I am happiest at work, covered in wood chips and dust. Often I have my best ideas while working. One thing informs the other, imagining and doing.

I like to think about craft like magic, that there is this magic process that can be handed down, learned and practiced. If I perform the trick well, I can transform raw materials into a unique object. A stick becomes a spoon if I know the right way to make the cuts, or mud can be vitrified and made into a bowl if I know the secret of heat. These are the base methods of transformation and the essence of craft.

Magic trick or no, much of craftwork is about learning a skill, which takes practice. This “try and try again” attitude is applicable for many walks of life, but I am not sure how you would really design things well without this kind of involvement and understanding of craft. And I think that even though there is a big difference between theoretical and practical, between designing and making, each intrinsically needs the other. The real magic reveals itself after all of the practice and all of the applied experience are leveraged, the material resonates, the purpose is realized and the object sings.

“I like to think about craft like magic, that there is this magic process that can be handed down, learned and practiced”

You co-founded BCMT Gallery to create a dialogue between like-minded artists. What conversations or tensions between art, craft, and design are most urgent to you right now, and how does the gallery embody that?

Every so often I am reminded of the importance of artworks and the expression of the soul. It is not always evident that we need these things in our lives, or that we should have a choice to foster them in our communities and relationships. There are times in society when the need for this kind of work is challenged, or that soul work is co-opted or copied. I think that we are crying out for meaning and connection in our world. And the more that we “advance” ourselves technologically, the “easier” that we make our lives, the more important that art and artistic intentions and connections become.

I think that we are living through a great time of paradigm shift, a time where our place in the universe is being challenged. Do we see ourselves in control of nature or better than nature, or do we find that we just occupy a small part within a much bigger web of existence? Is the world full of adversaries or are we in this together? I think that we are living through an existential crisis. Practically speaking, what has happened to art and vocational programs in our schools as a part of our basic education? Their lack speaks a lot about what a society values. I think about art and music as a “vehicle” for learning and expression more than just being a subject taught for a few hours a month.

The gallery is very much a vehicle for art. Certainly it is a place for me to show work, but the larger idea of creating a much bigger dialogue is even more powerful and engaging. I think that the best part of an artistic community is one where ideas can be shared and people feel encouraged and inspired, artists and patrons alike.

In The Artful Wooden Spoon you explore the making of tools as both craft and metaphor. How do you think everyday objects function culturally as carriers of memory or meaning beyond their practical use?

Absolutely. It is very interesting to me that Scandinavian spoon making and Pacific Northwest indigenous spoon making traditions would have a Siberian connection. Their spoon form is similar, suggesting perhaps cultural movement in the Stone Age. Another great example of this type of cultural connection that I love are the “sorbet drinking” spoons of Persia. They are unbelievable, opulently pierced and carved, functional woodworks. Genuinely works of art in themselves, not to mention the additional idea of the ritualization of food and the specialization of tools beyond the mundane and basic.

I love the idea that an experience can be deepened and enhanced by an object. I think that it also helps elevate the experience when somehow that object is also able to celebrate humanity and creative spirit. Handmade objects are full of this potential energy.

Some of your work can take many months to complete, while other pieces are more immediate. Does the temporal cadence of making, slow versus faster work, reveal different aspects of your own creative voice?

Sometimes I find myself in the weeds, perhaps from being too ambitious with a project. Hand carving an eight-foot long solid wood chain takes some time to do, as it turns out. Some things just take a long time. I am OK with that. Wood can take years to cure properly, which is indifferent to how I feel about how long it takes. It takes as long as it takes.

Sometimes I simply lack the creativity to find the right solution at present, and I am OK with that too. Let’s face it, the ultimate patina is time itself, another thing that is very hard to fake. Experience. Experience can also lead to the development of skill. If I make a shape many times I become more and more efficient at making it, faster and faster.

You have described striving to make things feel inevitable in their form, distilled to essence yet resonant. When you look at your own work years later, what inescapable quality do you see that connects disparate pieces across time?

When I look back over my work, I think about different families and how they grow or change. In my mind I name them, the families, and begin to associate new work in terms of the families they belong to. This categorization develops into a vocabulary that helps describe their qualities, what the families are known for. Whatever family or series of work, I think that I have always tried to discover some deeper reason or additional layer of meaning to this type of typology.

I am fascinated with the limits of things, when one thing stops and when the next starts.

For leaders, makers, and designers who are interested in creating spaces that feel alive, not just visually interesting, what practices or ways of seeing have helped you nurture a deeper connection between material, place, and human experience?

If I have ever been successful at this, it is only because I have put “myself” into the work. Perhaps literally. There is blood, sweat, and tears in there.

How do you animate the inanimate? What does it take to enliven the lifeless? Life. And where does all that energy come from? You. It comes from you.

I believe in the importance of good intentions and hard work, and also the belief that things can always be better, more refined, and better suited. I think that we are all born with gifts, and that our responsibility is to learn how to use them to contribute to the world in a positive way. Challenge how you actively do this. Now more than ever, ask yourself how much of who you think you are is “virtual” or “electronic.”

Joshua Vogel works and lives in the Hudson Valley, New York. His work spans sculpture, furniture, and handcrafted objects rooted in a deep conversation with wood and material. He is the author of The Artful Wooden Spoon and co-founder of BCMT Gallery. To see his work and follow his practice, find him at bcmtgallery.com or follow him on Instagram joshua_vogel_sculpture

Joshua Vogel is part of the Atelier/Stories artist roster. We work with creative founders, developers, and collectors who understand that culture is not decoration. It is the architecture of lasting identity. If that resonates, we would love to connect with you.

Visit us at www.atelierandstories.com

Last week I wrote about luxury hotels spending millions on art nobody remembers. Almost 300 people responded. My inbox filled in hours.

What stayed with me wasn’t the numbers. It was the honesty.

I said that I walk into five-star hotels around the world and feel nothing. The finishes are flawless. The service is polished. The art is so safe it disappears.

One comment said it perfectly: “Luxury doesn’t fail because of lack of budget. It fails because of lack of courage.”

And that’s exactly it. Hotels aren’t lazy. They’re scared. Scared of complaints. Scared of getting it wrong. So they choose the safest option. The same suppliers. The polite abstractions. The pieces that match the sofa.

But safe guarantees are forgettable. Spaces that cost millions and leave no mark. Guests walk through and never look up.

Some of the best insights came from professionals in the field.

“When art is chosen for decoration purposes only, it misses the point. Let’s circle back to the question: ‘Who’ chooses the art and ‘when’? One or several pieces chosen intentionally by someone who understands art and neuroactive spaces can make a world of difference.”

Timing matters. The person making the decision matters. When art comes at the end, after every other decision is locked, it’s just decoration. When it comes in early, during concept design, it becomes part of the strategy. It shapes movement, feeling, memory.

Another comment added: “The moment material, art, and craft enter early, they stop being decoration and start shaping behaviour, memory, and movement. We’ve seen one ceramic surface do more for a space than ten safe artworks added at the end. Meaning lives in what people touch every day, not just what they pass by.”

Art isn’t just what hangs on walls. It’s material, texture, craft, touch. When chosen intentionally, it doesn’t just look good—it resonates.

And it matters for business too. “When art becomes a strategic differentiator rather than a matching element, the entire experience transforms in ways that traditional metrics fail to capture.” You can track dwell time or social shares, but the emotional shift—that moment someone stops, looks up, and feels something real—cannot be measured. That’s what builds loyalty. Not thread count. Not marble.

Guests don’t remember polish. They remember resonance. “One piece that carries meaning, tension, locality, or story will do more for loyalty than an entire wall of approved abstractions. The next generation of luxury won’t be defined by how safe it feels. It will be defined by how deeply it stays with you. Art is not decoration. It’s memory architecture.”

The conversation fell into three groups.

Owners who know something is missing but feel stuck in approvals.

Designers tired of watering down bold ideas.

Travellers and collectors who no longer notice hotel art at all.

All seeing the same gap. Luxury hospitality has perfected perfection but lost emotional connection.

The market is shifting. Travellers are not booking for opulence anymore. They are booking for meaning. For connection. For experiences they can’t replicate elsewhere. The hotels that understand this are already acting differently. They bring art in early, collaborate with local voices, prioritise meaning over matching, and create moments that make people stop and feel.

Perfect finishes don’t create loyalty. Emotional connection does. Art can’t be a cost. It can be the reason someone chooses you.

The conversation isn’t over. It’s just starting. And the hotels brave enough to join it will be the ones people remember.

You can find the LinkedIn post here, and if this resonates, I would love to connect and continue the conversation with you personally.

Daniela

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*Image credit goes to the owner

"Condensa" - Stefano Ronci

In an age that glorifies speed, Stefano Ronci chooses a slower path. His is a world shaped not by sharp lines or quick answers, but by suggestion, memory, and restraint. Born in Rimini, along the Italian coast, and trained in both philosophy and architecture, Ronci doesn’t just create—he listens. To silence. To tension. To what’s left unsaid.

His work—whether sculptural, drawn, or simply imagined—feels suspended in time. There’s no rush, no need to impress. Just presence. A quiet, persistent kind.

We sat down with the artist to explore what happens when you return to your beginning. How silence becomes a co-creator. And why, for him, a meaningful life doesn’t seek completion—but fluidity.

You were born in Rimini (Italy), a city shaped by the sea. When you think of your origins, what comes to you first?
A sound. The sound of the lighthouse. On certain days, when the sky and sea lose their boundary, the only thing that remains is that sound. It’s not loud. But it anchors you. It tells you you're not lost.

Before art and architecture, do you remember the first space that made you feel something?
That’s a hard one to name. But maybe it was the hallway in my childhood home. At night, it turned into something else. Long, dark, and unknown. I had to walk through it to get to the bathroom. It wasn't about fear. It was something deeper—a kind of awareness. I think that was my first real experience of space. Not as structure, but as feeling.

Your practice moves between disciplines, yet your work feels cohesive—intimate, even. Where do you go internally before beginning something new?
I imagine being underwater. There’s that muted, enveloping silence—the kind that blocks out the world but sharpens your inner voice. I don’t start there, though. I first go through the noise—the rush of thoughts, images, distractions. I let it all in. Then slowly, I sink beneath it.

There’s a tension in your lines. They seem careful, but not afraid. Does your process feel closer to silence or conversation?
Silence. But not isolation. I want my work to hold a certain intimacy, like being in a sacred space. But I also want it to speak, softly, to others. Maybe not in words. Maybe not even right away. But eventually, there should be a sense of dialogue. With time, with memory, with what can’t be seen.

You’ve stayed close to your materials, your hands, your pace—while the world moves faster, louder. What do you think makes a life feel meaningful?
I’m cautious with the idea of a “well-made” life. It sounds complete. Polished. And that’s not how I experience living. Life feels more like water—moving, shifting, and hard to hold. I don’t think meaning comes from resolution. Maybe it comes from tension. From allowing life to stay open, unfinished, and real.

There’s an emotional gravity in your work—but it never tries to explain itself. Is that deliberate?
Yes. I try not to give too much. I think the viewer’s imagination should do some of the work. I’m interested in the spaces in-between, the moment before form appears or just after it fades. That ambiguity has more energy than certainty. It invites presence.

Ronci’s spaces don’t shout. They don’t insist. They breathe.

And in a time where design often leans on spectacle, his quiet approach feels quietly radical. He reminds us that stillness is not emptiness and that beauty doesn’t always need a spotlight. Sometimes, it just needs a listener.

INSIDE STORIES is where conversations unfold.

Atelier / Stories is where worlds are built. Come see what we’ve been crafting behind the curtain. atelierandstories.com

Photo credit: Alessandro La Spada

In a design culture driven by algorithmic precision and visual perfection, Alessandro La Spada offers something far more compelling: friction. Texture. Emotion. His work is never passive. It pushes back, makes you feel, asks you to look again. And maybe—if you’re paying attention—to feel something you hadn’t expected to feel at all.

Born and raised in Italy, La Spada is more than a designer. He’s a sculptor of emotion, a master of tension, a storyteller who uses surfaces the way others use language. His signature isn’t style—it’s presence. His rooms don’t just invite admiration. They insist on emotional connection.

In this intimate conversation, La Spada speaks not about design as commodity—but design as memory, contradiction, and survival. The result is a portrait of a man who refuses to be polished, preferring instead to remain powerfully, gloriously human.

BABYLON RACK / curved sofa for Visionnaire with an open backrest featuring an étagère effect.

Your work is unapologetically sensual, sculptural, and bold. What personal truth are you really telling through your design language?

I express identity through form. What you see—those tactile contrasts, carved masses, raw finishes—isn’t style, it’s feeling. I don’t separate material from emotion. Every texture is a fragment of instinct, an attempt to shape the invisible. That’s the truth I work from: emotion, made tangible.

In a world obsessed with trends and perfection, where do you find the courage to create from contradiction and instinct?

Courage comes from refusing to conform. I was never drawn to polished ideals or market formulas. Contradiction isn’t disorder—it’s energy. It’s where the rawest ideas live. Perfection is static. I trust imperfection to lead me somewhere honest. Somewhere alive.

Was there a moment—early on or more recently—when you felt completely misunderstood? What did it teach you about yourself?

Yes. Many times. Early in my career, people found my work confusing, even chaotic. That rejection pierced deep. But over time, I understood the real issue wasn’t me—it was a system afraid of emotion. The design world didn’t yet know how to read instinct as intelligence. That taught me not to wait for permission. Just keep creating, and let the world catch up.

If everything was taken away—your brand, your work, your titles—who would Alessandro La Spada be at the core?

Still here. Still making. Still chasing imperfect beauty. I don’t create for applause—I create out of necessity. Even without a name, I’d find a way to shape feeling into form. That part of me can’t be taken.

Did success change you—or did you reshape your idea of what success means?

In the beginning, I chased the usual metrics—recognition, validation, the spotlight. But now? Success is being able to stay radically myself. The freedom to follow instinct over expectation. That’s the only measure I trust.

Where does your creativity go when you're in pain—or consumed by love?

Both pain and love overwhelm. They flood the system. When I’m in pain, I observe. I fall silent. When I’m in love, I expand, I reach. But in both states, I create. I design to survive—especially when I don’t have the words. It’s the only way I know how to metabolise what I feel.

Do you believe great design is a form of emotional memory? If yes, what memory are you constantly revisiting—or rewriting?

Absolutely. Design is memory made physical. Every piece I shape carries echoes—of places I’ve been, silences I’ve felt, gestures that never left me. I don’t start from Pinterest boards. I start from what’s imprinted in me. Design, for me, is a process of remembering and translating.

What part of yourself have you had to protect in order to stay true to your vision?

The instinctive part. The one that moves before thinking. That wild creative impulse is fragile—it doesn’t perform on demand. I’ve had to protect it from systems that want strategy over sincerity. But that instinct is everything. Without it, there’s no soul in the work.

When do you feel most powerful—not professionally, but as a man?

When I speak truth. Especially when it’s not convenient or expected. Power, to me, is presence without performance. It’s when you stop adjusting. You stop packaging. You show up as you are.

What do you hope people feel—not just see—when they enter a space you’ve created?

I hope they feel a little off balance. Disoriented, then held. I don’t want to design predictable beauty. I want to design moments that touch the body and linger in the gut. A space should start a conversation between who I am and who the other person is. That’s when design becomes human.

At this point in your life, what matters more: leaving a legacy or feeling free?

Freedom. Without question. Legacy is a byproduct. Freedom is the source. I’ve learnt that if something is created from a place of real truth, it will leave a trace—whether or not it was meant to. But freedom, the ability to live and work with integrity? That’s everything.

VOLARE / Private villa in Dubai (under construction)

In a world that prizes clarity and containment, Alessandro La Spada remains defiantly undefined. His work doesn’t offer easy answers—it opens doors.

He designs the way some people love: with depth, danger, and a reverence for the unseen. Through tension, he offers resolution. Through boldness, he reveals vulnerability. And in every room, object, and gesture, he reminds us: beauty is not about perfection—it’s about presence.

He is not here to please. He is here to provoke, to stir, to sculpt the truth in all its imperfect glory.

INSIDE STORIES is where conversations unfold.

Atelier / Stories is where creative worlds are built. Come see what we’ve been crafting behind the curtain. atelierandstories.com

Credit: Luciano Bana

In New York, where space is a luxury and time even more so, the act of building takes on a different meaning. Here, success is measured not only in what is seen but in how seamlessly it’s brought into being. At the centre of this intricate choreography is Luciano Bana, Senior Vice President and Director of Construction at Hudson Meridian Construction Group, a man whose work is grounded not in performance, but in presence.

We met to talk about what it means to lead in a world built on shifting foundations.

His words were deliberate, his perspective shaped by over three decades of experience.

“Transparency and understanding client needs”, he told me, “are the cornerstones of successful leadership in the construction industry.”

It is a philosophy shaped by a path that was never linear. Luciano began in aviation, where movement defines success. But it was in construction that he found a deeper purpose: to create not just for utility, but for permanence. The transition from painting subcontractor to executive leadership was not a leap but a slow evolution, layered with learning, resilience, and discipline.

That resilience, he notes, became essential in the aftermath of 9/11, a moment that left an indelible mark on Hudson Meridian’s ethos. “Building relationships and leveraging experience are paramount in delivering exceptional results,” he said, “especially in the intricate world of New York City construction.”

These relationships, both internal and external, are nurtured through a culture of learning. Monthly development sessions, internal outreach programmes, and a commitment to seamless collaboration ensure that knowledge is not only preserved but shared. It is a quiet but powerful form of leadership.

His approach is anchored by what he calls the four pillars of project management: budget, quality, safety, and schedule. “We exhaust all avenues to deliver optimal solutions,” he says, “promptly and effectively.” There is nothing performative in this mindset. The focus is clarity, process, and delivery.

We spoke of technology, but not in abstract terms. Innovation at Hudson Meridian is pragmatic—data-driven platforms streamline operations, inform decisions, and support the firm's deep investment in transparent communication. This precision is evident in every layer of their process: regular roundtables, strategic partnerships, and an attention to detail that never wavers.

Luciano doesn’t romanticise leadership. He lives it. His daily responsibility is to oversee operations, ensuring profitability without losing sight of the human aspect of the work. His passion for success lies in his commitment to helping clients succeed.

“Success”, he reflects, “comes from proactive measures, not reactive responses.”

As he spoke about projects like Jackson Park, Surfside, and Bankside, to name a few, his tone remained steady. These developments are impressive in scope, but Luciano’s pride lies elsewhere, in consistency, in fulfilment, and in the promise upheld.

“Innovation and adaptability”, he said near the end of our conversation, “fuel our success as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of construction.”

There is something meditative in his certainty.

In a city that demands speed, Luciano Bana chooses intention.

And in doing so, he reminds us that the most meaningful forms of excellence are often the quietest. Success is measured in results, and his results have remained consistent.

INSIDE STORIES is where conversations unfold.

Atelier / Stories is where creative worlds are built. Come see what we’ve been crafting behind the curtain. atelierandstories.com

There are houses we live in, and then there are those that live in us.

In 1936, amidst the stillness of prewar Turin, Carlo Mollino entered a modest apartment—what would become a profound journey into the architecture of his mind. At thirty-one, accomplished yet evolving, he used the first earnings from his first public commission not to build outward, but inward.

He called it Casa Miller.

To the outside world, it appeared as a simple apartment. To Mollino, it was an entirely different thing. A vessel for thought. A mirror. A laboratory for the intangible aspects of design—emotion, instinct, memory.

What followed was not the steady progression of a career but a quiet series of departures.

Ten interiors. Almost two hundred pieces of furniture. Each piece unique. Each one temporary. Mollino never sought legacy. He sought meaning—not in permanence, but in resonance.

His spaces weren’t meant to last—they were meant to breathe.

Mollino saw the interior as something more than shelter—it was skin. It changed with time. It held memory. It absorbed emotion. To him, the home was not a backdrop to life; it was an active, living force, shaped by the person within. "A practical expression of a feeling", he called it. A shell that grows inward, revealing what is unseen.

Every space he created was a complete organism. No part existed in isolation. A chair was not separate from its surroundings. Walls weren’t mere backdrops—they were participants. The architecture, furniture, and light moved together in harmony. If design is a language, Mollino spoke in full sentences, never fragments.

His early interiors felt like vivid dreams—mirrored surfaces extending space beyond its boundaries, symbolic forms materialising and fading. Surrealism and reverence for the unseen defined his work. As time passed, his palette evolved. Botanical motifs emerged. Light softened. His later works, pared back and spiritual, whispered more than they spoke.

Style was never his goal.

Emotion was.

Casa Miller was dense, enigmatic, layered with intention. Later, the Casa del Sole ski lodge felt entirely different—open, suspended in light, a breath drawn in and let go. Yet, both shared a core idea: space should reflect what is felt, not just what is seen.

Mollino understood that nothing lasts. Most of his interiors were dismantled, scattered into museums, archives, and private collections. Today, only fragments remain—drawings, prototypes, a lone chair. And photographs. Crisp. Black and white. Silent.

But colour was vital to his work.

While we remember his world in monochrome, his spaces were alive with hues—deep greens, ochre velvets, polished woods, and luminous textiles. The contrasts were deliberate. Even now, his pieces retain a silent tension—a memory of touch, an echo of atmosphere.

Scale was never his interest. He wasn’t drawn to industry. His work didn’t multiply—it echoed. And in that echo, something endures.

At a time when design is often driven by visibility, Mollino shows us another way. A quieter way. Where beauty doesn’t compete but waits to be found. Where the interior is not a stage for lifestyle but a landscape for thought.

His influence lives on not in quantity, but in its frequency. In the rising tide of emotional minimalism. In the return to reflection. In spaces that resist spectacle and invite stillness.

Mollino taught us that a room, like a poem, doesn’t need to explain itself. It only needs to be felt.

Photography credits | Courtesy of Museo Casa Mollino, Turin, 2010

Lorenzo Cecilioni and his art

In an era consumed by polish and perfection, Lorenzo Cecilioni returns us to something more primal—more human. His work, often born from fire, scars, and instinct, asks us to look beyond the surface and toward the soul of things. At once sculptural and painterly, his creations embody what he calls accordi pittorici—pictorial harmonies not imposed, but discovered, through an alchemical dance with matter.

We met Lorenzo not in a sleek white studio but through his materials—wood that remembers fire, textures that recall forgotten places, and compositions that feel like memory made tangible. What follows is an intimate conversation with the Italian artist who reminds us that imperfection is not a flaw but freedom.

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“FORMA E CONTENUTO” Mixed media: salt, stoneware, charred wood. 125 x 100 cm | 2021

“DOVE RISIEDONO I RICORDI” – EARTHENWARE, OXIDES 120 x 140 cm Year 2025

Do you remember the first time the material began to guide you, rather than the other way around?

Absolutely. I remember those first sensations well—when the material starts to guide you. Not in every part of the process, but in large enough moments to make you listen. With time, through experience, mistakes, and constant research—what I call ‘collaborations’ between different materials—you reach a kind of knowledge. You begin to control almost everything… almost. But it's precisely in that moment of ‘losing control’ where I like to search for the uniqueness of the piece. It’s often an unrepeatable reaction—one that reveals something truly one of a kind.

Your work embraces imperfection in a radical way. What does that mean to you—especially in contrast to today’s polished, glossy world?

Let’s be clear—this doesn’t mean I don’t love beauty. Quite the opposite. I believe true beauty lives in the imperfection that becomes uniqueness. The artist’s role is to seek this, to avoid the stereotype of ‘perfection equals beautiful’. The moment we’re living in should teach us to look beyond mass thought—beyond the uniform, the homogenised. So I say: long live raw, rough, imperfect matter. They are synonyms of beauty.

Your process involves fire, layering, and erosion. If these gestures were emotional or spiritual, what would they represent?

Great question. If I were to transform these gestures into emotional metaphors, I’d say they reflect what each of us experiences in our earthly passage. We are born, we are layered, we transform. For some, there is even a second life. And finally, we die—like matter. Man equals Nature. It’s all the same cycle.

Italy, and the traces of time it carries, seem deeply embedded in your work. How does your environment shape your visual language?

I think one of my gifts is observation. I’m a true accumulator of images. I’m always drawn to things with a sense of life—objects that are worn, weathered, or corroded. I ‘feed’ on these images. My mind processes them, and they eventually become installations that carry this DNA.

What do you hope your work whispers to the spaces it enters—or to the collectors who choose to live with it?

Dialogue. That’s the word. I believe many styles and genres can coexist, as long as they’re united by good taste. To the collector, I’d only hope—just for a moment—that the work touches their sensitivity. That the composition of materials might spark a memory or evoke a feeling that lingers quietly in the room.

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Ter-ra-còt-ta,burnt wood and salt | 180x180 cm | year 2020

Cecilioni’s art doesn’t shout. It doesn’t seek to seduce with shine. Instead, it invites us inward—to pause, to observe, to feel. In every burnt panel, every scarred edge, he builds a language rooted in honesty. At a time when design often forgets to breathe, Lorenzo’s works remind us that beauty, like nature, is most powerful when it refuses to be controlled.

Atelier / Stories is honoured to represent the work of Lorenzo Cecilioni across the USA and Middle Eastern markets. If his art speaks to you, or if you wish to explore how his pieces can be curated into your space or project, we warmly invite you to connect with our studio.

Friends,

I live between Italy and Dubai.
Two places. Two ways of thinking.
One honours heritage. The other drives change.

Both have shaped how I see design.
But over time, I saw something shift.

Design became faster. Louder. Easier to consume, harder to feel.
We celebrate the finished product—but lose sight of the process.
We forget the people, the decisions, and the moments that shape the work.

That’s why I created Inside Stories.

It’s not a magazine. It’s not about trends.
It’s a journal. A slower space to reconnect with what design is really about.

We feature conversations with the people behind the work—architects, artists, and creative minds.
We talk about how ideas form. How brands are built: This isn’t content for content’s sake.
It’s a chance to listen, to reflect, to go deeper.

Inside Stories is for those who want substance over noise.
For those who care about meaning, not just style.

If that speaks to you, I’d love you to join us.
We’re just getting started.

Warmly,
Daniela