Book: Vladimir Kagan

“My greatest satisfaction is when the sketch looks as though I had drawn it from the final piece, instead of the other way around,” is the quote scrawled across the back cover of Vladimir Kagan: A Lifetime of Avant Garde Design (Pointed Leaf Press), the newly updated compendium of the 88-year-old designer’s life work. It’s hard to believe it happens any other way for the midcentury modern virtuoso, whose classic furniture pieces like the barrel chair and Serpentine sofa still inspire interior designers in the 21st century. The book’s rerelease chronicles his recent commissions and continuing influence, and includes a foreword by architect Zaha Hadid. The new chapter takes readers into Tommy and Dee Hilfiger’s monochromatic master bedroom, where a white Kagan Crescent sofa sits harmoniously under a series of vintage Marilyn Monroe photographs by Bert Stern; a lobby stocked with reproduced 1958 Ondine wing chairs in Portugal’s L’and Vineyards and Hotel; and high above Manhattan to the dining room of the restaurant Robert, which crowns the Museum of Art and Design, and houses a collection of his Floating Back sofas. Count on us among the many anticipating the next decade of Kagan’s timeless designs.