Yabu Pushelberg, an emotional experience
Published on 4 March 2022
These two multi-award-winning Canadian architects will be at the Maison&Objet trade fair in March for a one-off talk looking back at their outstanding careers.
Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu founded their Toronto-based design studio back in 1980. They are not only business partners but life partners, too, and are widely recognised as being two of the most influential people in design. Staffed by a team over one hundred employees, their two offices in New York and Toronto have designed some of the world’s most stunning hotels and restaurants, and count the most luxurious department stores and boutiques amongst their clients. The pair have just completed the renovation of the La Samaritaine department store’s Pont Neuf building in Paris, which is owned by the LVMH group. During a talk at Maison&Objet on 28th March, they will explain how they have made the transition from being a simple interior design firm to a fully-fledged design house, creatively shaping every single aspect of their designs.
You’ve been working for 40 years. Over that time, what has changed the most in the way you design interiors?
Glenn Pushelberg: Time has given us the gift of growing. We have been fortunate enough to travel and work all around the world. We have met people from all walks of life, and collaborated with some spectacular and open-minded people. The chapters our studio has written have all subtly carved out a path that is distinctly us. We have organically grown from an interior design firm into a design house, where we creatively direct experiences through interiors, products, lighting, textiles, styling, and graphics. We have brought together many talented minds to think about how we can design a future we want to be a part of.
George Yabu: The one thing that hasn’t changed, but has become more important to us, is our role as an educator! Like us, our studio has grown. Our job is to be there to support, encourage and challenge people to think big and think authentically. I think that is where we are now, not just in terms of our design teams, but in terms of our community, our collaborators and our partners. We build conversations around what ifs.
The theme of Maison&Objet is “New Luxury”. How has people’s idea of luxury evolved over time?
GP: The design industry has gone through a period of gilding the lily, where luxury was measured by ostentation. I think that is why people roll their eyes on hearing the word “luxury” today. Why? Because decoration does not translate to understanding an individual’s intrinsic needs. Luxury is time. Luxury is love. Luxury is comfort and feeling understood. That is why, when we design, we move beyond dictating aesthetics to craft spaces that shape an experience.
GY: We always work with muses to inspire us, and what that does is tell a story. We create an imaginary script. It’s an incredible device to use to explain the design’s context and expression. A sea of beautiful furniture isn’t enough to resonate anymore. There’s got to be a story portrayed in every setting. That’s luxury.
To give us an insight into your design style, tell us about the monumental stairwells you sometimes create in your buildings.
GY: A stairwell is a functional tool that connects spaces. It creates movement for guests to go up and down, allowing them to see a venue from different vantage points. When executed well, the stairwell can become an anchor to a space. That is why we approach a stairwell’s design similarly to how you would create a sculpture. It is an opportunity to infuse art into a venue, to juxtapose a number of different dimensions.
You have recently refurbished the La Samaritaine department store in Paris, a building that combines both art deco and art nouveau styles. What challenges did you face?
GY & GP: La Samaritaine is five storeys high, so it’s a matrix and you have to keep customers engaged. It’s important to understand the space from their point of view, so they don’t tire of their surroundings. The muse here was le flâneur, the typical Parisian wanderer. La Samaritaine has a very clear sense of architecture and a balance between the old and new that really works in a very sensitive way. It’s not bombastic. The aisles aren’t deep and the floor plates are very shallow, creating an intimate connection with the product and the majesty of the building. You feel comfortable in the modernity of the surroundings.
