A Japanese hotel hidden in the forest
Before Japanese architect Shigeru Ban designed the first Shishi-Iwa House — an 11-room hotel in Karuizawa, a town in the leafy foothills of Mount Asama, two hours northwest of Tokyo — which opened in 2018, he showed a map. from the trees on the property. The elegant two-storey building he conceived winds around them like a river. The idea was to create an escape where architecture disrupts nature as little as possible. In May, a new building, Shishi-Iwa House No. 2, close to be opened; it will feature a 30-seat restaurant whose seasonal menu will feature local ingredients, as well as a wine and whiskey bar on the second floor, where the view from the landmark windows will make you feel like you’re floating in the forest canopy. Both retreats have impressive art collections: House No. 1 has paintings by artists of the Japanese avant-garde Gutai movement; House No. 2 is hung with old masters and works by contemporary photographers. A third Shishi-Iwa House — a modern take on a traditional sukiya teahouse designed by architect Ryue Nishizawa — is set to open in Karuizawa next spring, and a fourth, designed by architect Kazuyo Sejima, is set to open in Hakone, a hot spring, in 2024. city near Tokyo with a view of Mount Fuji. From $500 per night; shishiiwahouse.jp† † Gisela Williams
A new version of a classic bronze timepiece
Bronze is not a metal traditionally associated with timepieces; when worn against the skin, it develops an unmistakable patina. However, the alloy is preferred in the marine world, where it is used for everything from propellers to propeller shafts, for its ability to resist corrosion. In 2011, Italian watchmaker Panerai – who over the past century has been making chronometers for the divers of the Italian Royal Navy – introduced one of the first watches with a bronze case, the Bronzo, which became an instant classic. Now there’s the PAM760 Radiomir Bronzo, a no-submersible update to the brand’s popular diving watch, with a sapphire back attached to the strap by a titanium bezel. The model’s name is a nod to the radium-based substance, patented by Panerai in 1916, that once illuminated the timepiece’s minimalist dials and oversized visors, making them easier to read in the dark or underwater. For a piece of history of timekeeping one sometimes has to dive deep. $16,400; (786) 735-6446. † Jameson Montgomery
Flavorful Variations of Escargot, from Southeast India to China
Most Americans are familiar with the French version of snails: escargot, your common garden snail, cooked in butter and sprinkled with herbs. But snails are also eaten in Asia. Vijay Kumar of the Semma restaurant in downtown New York grew up on a rice farm in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where his family collected river snails from the rice fields after a monsoon; his grandmother cooked them in a gravy of tomatoes, caramelized onions, tamarind and ginger. “It appeals to the ingenuity of different cultures,” says Kumar, who serves a re-creation of his grandmother’s dish. “Most Indians have no idea we have snails in Southeast Indian cuisine.” He compares the texture of cooked snails to that of mushrooms and adds that they absorb flavors just as well. Snails, dressed in miso butter, also make an appearance at a nearby Southeast Asian restaurant, the Tyger. Meanwhile, luosifen, stinky snail noodles, became a viral sensation in China during the pandemic. The humble Liuzhou specialty starring river snails and fermented bamboo shoots is now readily available, complete with a plastic bag of condensed snail broth.
If you want to experiment for yourself, you can order from Peconic Escargot on Long Island, the only commercial snail producer in the United States – Taylor Knapp, the founder, grows his in a 300-square-foot greenhouse and feeds them a diet of herbs and greens such as sorrel, dandelion and clover. Or feed them – as recipe developer Zoe Yang has done, using periwinkles (tiny sea snails) instead of the hatch snails collected from rice paddies in Nanjing. † Cathy Erway
A stone table reminiscent of the Roman Empire
Marble—whether white-polished or laced with expressive veins—is synonymous with classical Rome, but the city’s iconic exterior was made largely of travertine, a porous sedimentary rock that is a form of limestone. The pale yellow tone, as seen in the Colosseum and St. Peter’s Basilica, is created by hot spring water reacting with carbonate minerals. Elegant and raw at the same time, the stone was often used as a decorative cladding for structures made of brick or concrete – the material with which the Romans could perfect the arch. Now Paris-based architect and designer Joris Poggioli has reinterpreted those codes in this minimalist travertine table for RH. Surrounded by arches reminiscent of columns and carved niches, it suggests not only the majesty of the Roman Empire, but also the verve of 1980s postmodernism – an ideal synthesis of the ancient past and the fearless future. † Nancy Hass
Photo Assistants: Jess Kirkham, Jason Rogers
A Van Cleef & Arpels necklace inspired by enchanting art
After a decade-long focus on kinetic works, the artist Marcel Duchamp brought to the Paris Concours Lépine Invention Fair in 1935 a set of “Rotoreliefs” – lithographed spirals on cardboard discs made to spin on a turntable for entertainment. They flopped at the exhibit, but his experiments had already influenced filmmakers such as Jean Cocteau, who used a rotating disc in his 1932 film “The Blood of a Poet,” and Man Ray, with whom Duchamp collaborated (along with the photographer Marc Allégret) on “Anemic Cinema,” a six-minute fantasy of gyroscopic imagery and text from 1926. Duchamp never figured out how to bring such 3D illusions to the masses, but his research on depth perception and motion helped for decades. to define the aesthetic imagination. For a convertible series of necklaces, Van Cleef & Arpels, the 116-year-old jeweler from Paris, took inspiration from both the hypnotic swirls of the “Rotoreliefs” and “The Seven Bodies”, a 2017 neo-op Artwork by the 39- year old Brazilian born Bruno Penabranca from Brooklyn. The artists’ trippy influences are evident in the rose gold and onyx rays that form the central motif of the necklace, which can be transformed into a brooch or choker. With a shimmering pale pink morganite sun in the center and a whimsical tassel of onyx and red spinels, it embodies an invigorating combination: one of chaste geometry and prismatic psychedelia. † Nancy Hass
Digital technology: Lori Cannava. Photo assistant: Karl Leitz. Set Assistant: Ryan Chassee
