Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1547305
As TFP's managing director, Laura Young oversees, in collaboration with a staff of 50, a phalanx of pedigreed properties made over into design galleries, spread across America — in San Francisco, NYC, L.A., and, as of last December, in Miami, in the 1920s-era Villa Paula. We caught up with the director between Salone del Mobile Milano and New York design week, at The Future Perfect's 1852-era West Village St. Luke's Townhouse, on the mentor younger artists. She credits museum trips with her grandparents, Sherle and Rose, who lived within walking distance of some of New York's finest collections, with shaping her own eye. Researching the book gave her a more complete picture of a man she describes as both intimidating and adored. "He would walk into a room, and everyone would stop talking to see what he had to say," she says of childhood memories that, decades later, are matched by a growing appreciation for the discipline behind his work. Central to that ethos is lost-wax casting, still the company's primary process today at its foundry in Fall River, Massachusetts. It begins with a wax model, encased in plaster and heated until the wax melts away, leaving a mold for molten bronze. Once a piece emerges, it's far from finished. It passes through hand- chasing, where artisans use small tools to refine and sharpen the cast details by hand, then plating and polishing, before any semiprecious stone elements are set. It's slow, physical work, and Geoffroy says the smallest variation in a polisher's touch can change how a finished piece looks. That same technique shapes the company's most recognizable designs. Beyond the dolphin, there's the Swan bath faucet, a gilded bird sculptural enough to stand on its own, imitated widely but never quite duplicated. The Acanthus collection, its leaves borrowed from Roman and neoclassical ornament, now spans everything from faucets to cabinet hardware to towel rings. Now Geoffroy is mining the archive for new work. This fall, she's introducing Sherle Wagner's first kitchen faucets, Louis Armstrong plays the trumpet in his bath at home in Queens, lavishly outfitted in Sherle Wagner, 1971. designed to coordinate with existing collections so a client who selects a detailed knob in the bath can carry the same design language into the kitchen. She's also developing a Pagoda collection incorporating semiprecious stones, a choice her grandfather favored from the company's early days, now set using prong and bezel techniques typically reserved for fine jewelry. Sherle Wagner at Fixtures & Fittings, 7611 Kempwood Dr., Building F, fixturesfittings.com. An archival blueprint for the Swan bar spout, one of Sherle Wagner's most iconic designs An ad that ran from the 1960s through the 1980s, highlighting jewelry-grade craftsmanship and use of precious materials Marissa Wagner Geoffroy Armstrong's bath features a Shell pedestal and Swan collection faucet. ORMOND GIGLI CHRIS MOTTALINI COURTESY AD ARCHIVES SHERLE WAGNER ARCHIVES 62