As the Manhattan Loft Corporation celebrates 25 years, its founder Harry Handelsman plots elevated living in post-Olympics east London
Loft living once meant colonising an industrial space in a desolate part of town, filling it with statement furniture and learning to love the screech of goods trains as a non-stop backing track. That’s how Harry Handelsman, an unusually high-profile property developer and founder of the Manhattan Loft Corporation, remembers it anyway. Twenty-five years ago, he was living in Bankside, on the wrong side of the Thames, with dodgy pubs and greasy spoons for company. ‘At that time, London was in deep recession. The whole city was up for sale,’ he recalls. Handelsman, then in his early forties, had returned from a stint in Manhattan, where he was working in finance and was starting to dabble in property, ‘but nothing was selling’. In 1992, he had a light-bulb moment. He bought a building in a then similarly desolate Clerkenwell for £435,000 and turned it into the sort of lofts he had seen in New York. Artists, film producers, photographers and pop stars moved in, as Handelsman hoped, and the newly formed Manhattan Loft Corporation (MLC) became synonymous with a cool new way of living.
Since then, the loft proposition has been so exploited that it has come to mean anything from a first-floor shoe-box to a new-build with exposed bricks and no views. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, though, and of his copycats Handelsman says: ‘I’m happy that loft living is more readily available. My prime motivation is always to add things that don’t exist and have others follow my footsteps, as long as they do it with care and attention.’
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2017-Ausgabe von Wallpaper.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2017-Ausgabe von Wallpaper.
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Pas de Deux - Choreographer Wayne McGregor on turning a post-apocalyptic trilogy by Margaret Atwood into a three-act ballet in collaboration with composer Max Richter
Wayne McGregor is the master of creative collaborations. As resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, a position he has held since 2006, he has translated an eclectic roster of literary, avant-garde and contemporary references into works for the stage, as well as taken the helm on film, TV, fashion and music videos projects, and founded his own London-based studio.
Waking Moments - Design makes a welcome return to the Dakar Biennale, sounding out a clarion call to Africa's new creative generation
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Over the last decade, Bali-based studio Ibuku, headed up by designer Elora Hardy, has become a leading expert in bamboo architecture, its output encompassing everything from a traditional Sumbanese house and a yoga and meditation space to playful treehouses and a riverside café at an eco-friendly jungle retreat in Ubud. In 2021, the studio completed The Arc sports hall at the Green School in Bali (founded by Elora's father, designer John Hardy). Made from a series of arches spanning an impressive 19m, it was a pioneering feat of bamboo engineering.
Guest Editor Marcio Kogan - Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century).
Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century). The 72-year-old architect has since become synonymous with contemporary Brazilian chic, offering a sumptuous blend of raw, textured materials; clean geometric forms; effortless functionality; vernacular design features; and a deep knowledge and appreciation of the rich, tropical modernist architecture legacy of his home country.
DREAM TEAM
A rewatching of a seminal film laid the foundation for JW Anderson's latest collection, a fantastical collaboration with artist Christiane Kubrick
