Editor’s Letter: Objects of Desire

What are you obsessed with? What do you fixate on every day? What do you love a little too much? We all have preoccupations that define who we are, and they usually make their way into the design of our homes. For me, one of my (many) obsessions is the wallpaper in one room of my house. People always think I’m a spartan minimalist, but my home office is covered in a bright magenta floral pattern. It’s tacky. Even outré. But it reflects my passion for bringing some surrealism into everyday life. It’s the kind of kitsch that makes you feel good. And it’s a conversation starter; it’s fun to see who will mention it when it’s in the background of a virtual meeting.

Similarly, all of the people in this issue have designed the place where they live around their personal manias, and without going full psychoanalysis, we aimed to show exactly how these quirks inhabit their homes. Some of them are obsessed with color. The owners of homes in Belgium and Brooklyn both went big with bold color choices that saturate almost every surface in their houses. Others are on a mission. Architect and rogue preservationist Dionisis Sotovikis restored a famous modernist building in Athens from the 1950s and then opened a passageway inside a wardrobe to connect it to two older, romantically patinated apartments, never mind that the architectural acrobatics meant that his space now surrounds his neighbors’. Another recent mission took him to the modest island villa of 19th-century architect and polymath Alexandros Rodakis, a project he says he undertook without official permission in order to save the building from crumbling. Elsewhere, but in no particular location, an adventure-seeking couple roam the United States in a clever DIY truck converted into a home; and we also drop in on a quirky compound in Portugal where digital nomads can touch down in buildings designed by Fala, one of my favorite architecture studios.