Shared Storey

Interior designer Andre Mellone and gallerist André Viana work wonders with adjoining former warehouse spaces in New York’s West Chelsea.

- Aaron Peasley

The walls of interior designer Andre Mellone’s West Chelsea studio resemble an impeccably curated Instagram feed come to life. Assembled in a floor-to-ceiling grid are vintage Richard Avedon fashion ads, Jacques Tati film stills and images of lesser-known buildings by Robert Mallet-Stevens and Le Corbusier.

Brazilian-born Mellone, unlike many other designers and architects, is not afraid to declare his influences. ‘It’s very important that everything I am working on is up on the wall,’ he says. ‘I’ll never understand pristine offices with nothing on the walls and not a thing out of place. As you can see, I like to draw from many different worlds, from modernism to art deco, film and fashion.’

The son of Brazilian industrial designer Oswaldo Mellone, who worked with many of the country’s leading architects, including Sérgio Rodrigues, Mellone grew up surrounded by modernist design. ‘I’m probably a minimalist at heart,’ he confesses. Nevertheless, while Brazil’s sensual minimalism clearly remains an important reference point, Mellone’s aesthetic has been influenced by two decades in New York, where he has worked for architecture firms such as Robert AM Stern, Mark Hampton and Sawyer | Berson.