CITY Issue 56

continued from pg. 43 counts. Not to mention the style, the ﬁ nal look. We’ e back to the snappe , and Mitgang muses about how he wants to plate it: “I’m thinking we have it ca paccio style, on top of the pudding.” It sounds as biza e as P une’s bu ge , and it’s deﬁnitely a design move; info mation w apped in a look, su ounded by a style. So chefs think like designe s. Do designe s think like chefs? I call Jesse Reise , an a chitect who had the (mis)fo tune of being my last a chitectu e p ofesso eve . I emembe th ough the pain that he was ve y into food. Still is. I ask him if the e’s an ove lap between cooking and design. “They’ e ve y analogous,” he says. “I don’t do these eally ﬁnicky compositions so much, but it’s kind of a mate ial p actice.” Reise ’s a chitectu e, which he does with his wife, Nanako Umemoto, is ve y techno-savvy and conceptual. Lots of meshes and skins. “It’s ve y simila in te ms of the way you go about thinking about balancing the dish, the complex inte actions,” he explains, compa ing the p ocesses. “It’s also simila in that you assemble. It’s an assemblage of things, and you’ e managing the unfolding of the dish as it develops.” Reise points out that cooking an omelette has the same kind of feedback cycle as a building. “ ou’ e watching ve y ca efully the way in which the eggs a e congealing, and t ying to egulate the textu es and timing,” he says. “It’s ve y simila to the way we’ e thinking about the design p ocess — the e’s a loop of what you’ e d awing and what’s coming back.” He also knows the p inciples he’s ejecting. “The e a e ce tain a chitects who justify thei wo k th ough the p ocess,” he says. “I p efe to be mo e like nthony Bou dain and judge it on the p oduct: If it’s lousy, it’s lousy.” The biggest ove lap he sees is in the designe ’s and cook’s ability to disce n small diﬀe ences. nd that’s whe e the aesthetic, the actual design, comes in. The e is a small-tu ned-big diﬀe ence between a bu ge that sits in the middle of an English muﬃn and one that comes ight to the edge of a potato bun, and it’s about expectation, su p ise, skepticism, and, ﬁnally, elief. The way the P une bu ge is p esented — “this is w ong, this can’t be how it’s supposed to be” — is just anothe example of Hamilton’s elaxed sense of humo combined with ethe eal skill. Whe e Hamilton’s bu ge is like a David Rockwell inte io (mate ially focused, ove tly scaled, playfully theat ical), Gab iel K euthe ’s lsatian a ticulation at his estau ant The Mode n — I’m thinking of his veal and goat cheese te ine nicely oﬀset by its ult asmooth base of wate c ess pu ee on one side and playful, sp ingy wate c ess leaves on the othe — is like a Renzo Piano building (subtle, detailed, pe fect). nd Mitgang’s ceviche? Will lsop p oject (out the e, biza o-st aightfo wa d, always colo ful). It’s an old saying that the e a e a hund ed ways to cook an egg. The e must be a thousand ways to design one. 44 CITY TY SUPER FASHION: NICHOLAS GHESQUIERE’S ARMOR-INSPIRED FASHION FOR BALENCIAGA; HUSSEIN CHALAYAN’S LOOKS RECALL BOTH ROBOTS AND FIREFLIES; C.P. COMPANY’S ‘MUNCH JACKET’ IS OUTFITTED WITH A PERSONAL SAFETY ALARM.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 56

City Issue 56 Contents Letter from City: Re: Design Our Friends: The Faces Behind the Stories Action: What's New, What's Hot, What's Now Wanted: Olympic Bound? Button Up City Moment: The Writing’s on the Wall How We Live: Concrete Jungle Fast Food: Bites of Spring The Amused Bouche: Blueprint Special In Rouge: Hero Worship Fashion: Welcome to the Boys’ Club Travel: My Pod Architecture: Out of the Blue Design: Home Remedies Tokyo Rising Zen and the Art of Catholicism Think Big Face Value Runaways Intimate Relations Where to Buy It: Store Locations Icon: The Infinity Pool

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