MASTER OF DESIGN
Yaniv Chen, owner of Master Studio, shares seven of his inspirations
Master Studio’s sublime inspirations
For Cape Town-based interior designer Yaniv Chen, creating products and spaces is more about emoting a mood or feeling than following fleeting trends. Founder of Master Studio, which has been in business for just over a year, Chen uses his mixed background of fashion, interior architecture and furniture design to work on an eclectic mix of projects, from homes to retail stores and showrooms. With business partner Leigh Finck, Chen sets out to “create interiors that are sacred, not precious. We believe chairs should be sat on, objects touched and books paged through,” says the designer.
1 A furniture piece I can‘t live without is my Gio Ponti Superleggera chairs from Cassina. They’ve always reminded my of an Italian villa. Something out of ”Call Me By Your Name“or ”A Bigger Splash“.
2 An album I can listen to over and over again is Blood Orange’s ”Cupid Deluxe“.
3 The book that influenced me the most is ”The Feeling of Things“by Adam Caruso. He delves into the emotive properties of design and architecture.
4 We listen to a lot of podcasts at the studio. Some favourites are 99% Invisible, Fresh Air, Monocle — The Urbanist, Monocle — Section D, The Observatory. It’s really lovely because you can learn while you work.
5 My ultimate dinner-party dish is Yotam Ottolenghi’s Eton Mess — perfect balance between sweet and sour.
6 A South African artist we should all keep our eye on is Michele Mathison. He’s a sculptor working with unconventional materials in the most beautiful ways.
7 My favourite way to spend a Sunday is trawling through old interiors books from the ‘20s to the ‘90s.