Lately, the icon in question is a house. “I was looking for a special property with an incredible backstory that had potential for creating something new,” explains Arsham, who found his answer in an unconventional postmodern compound, built in 2009 by Jack Ceglic, best known for creating the minimalist look of 1970s-era Dean & DeLuca. “It’s really orthogonal,” Arsham admits, of the two structures, clad entirely in prefabricated enameled-steel paneling. But he thrilled at the archeological elements of the project—bringing this relic of the recent past back to its former glory, while carving out living, working, and garage space for himself, and, at the moment of our conversation, his eight Porsches.
“It was not in great shape,” explains Arsham, who united the two structures with an enclosed interior-garden connection, refurbished original polished-concrete floors, and renovated the bathrooms to include his new collection for Kohler. “I really tried to push the potential in fabrication,” he says of the Landshapes series that launched this past September and includes a sink, mirrors, vanity, light fixtures, and even a toilet, rethinking what we’ve come to expect from these workaday typologies. The bath, inspired by the chiseled-stone Snarkitecture tub in Arsham’s previous Hamptons home (AD, December 2019), has the eroded look of his sculptures, thanks to the hand-carved texture of the mold. Even some of the tile—which, Arsham excitedly reports, “is all produced from the waste material from the casting of bathtubs and sinks and toilets”—is part of the collection.
