Collection by Aileen Kwun
Modern Rooms With Colorful, Alluring Tile
Culled from the archives of Dwell, these stunning rooms make the case for modern tile.
The sunken bathtub in George Nakashima’s Sanso Villa mimics the shape of a swimming pool on the grounds. His daughter, Mira Nakashima, took over the studio after his death and now lives and works on the property. “A Japanese garden often has a central pond derived from the character for ‘heart’ or ‘spirit,’ and this may be an abstraction of that character,” she says of the tub’s sculptural form.
Uncovering the original concrete surfacing of the columns, which are unusually thick thanks to the building’s original industrial function, was a major undertaking. Covered in successive layers of white paint, a team worked for over a week to expose the concrete, revealing the space’s gritty character.