Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/48690
P V Pilar Viladas has been covering architecture and design so exhaustively for the past 14 years at the New York Times (and before that at Interiors, Progressive Architecture, House & Garden and Architectural Digest), that she has evolved into one of the field's foremost tastemakers herself. Indeed the Gray Lady's much followed design editor has written extensively about everyone from legends past like Gio Ponti and Richard Neutra to current superstars Patricia Urquiola and Hella Jongerius. She has penned books on New York interiors, Los Angeles style and California beach abodes. All of which makes it un- surprising that her widely read endorsements can be career-making catalysts for the talented up-and- comers they're about. Viladas studied art history as an undergraduate at Harvard but kept finding herself drawn to more functional objets d'arts. "I really liked the fact that design allows you to make something beautiful that really serves a purpose," she says. The piece that changed everything for her was Marco Zanuso's "Marcuso" dining table, a 1969 edition for Zanotta that comprises a glass pane with rounded corners that is screwed into its stainless steel legs. She spotted the piece as a teen at Design Research, the late great Cambridge, Massachusetts, design superstore. "This light bulb went on," she says. "I didn't realize this was something you could do—that you could make objects like this as a profession." Writing about it for the Times in 2005, Viladas admits: "I was hooked." As per usual, Viladas has her eye on a slew of young architects and designers, including Elisa Strozyk, who will present a Fendi-sponsored piece at this year's Design Miami/. These days, an in- creasing number of them are women. "We're definitely making progress in that area," she says. "But I wouldn't say that the playing field is equal." 84 CULTURED il a r IL AD A S PHOTO BY ROBERT MAXWELL