What’s Happening: This year’s prize goes to Mexican ceramist Andrés Anza, whose intricately detailed sculpture looks like a cross between a dried-up cactus and a sea anemone.

The Download: Each year, the Spanish luxury house looks beyond the silo of fashion to celebrate the enduring impact of art, design, and culture in the form of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. Conceived by creative director and Surface cover star Jonathan Anderson, the award is a tribute to Loewe’s beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846. Over the years, it has also become somewhat of a bellwether for forward-thinking ideas in the design world. More than 2,700 artists submitted for last year’s prize, but an eye-popping 3,900 entered this year for the chance to receive a €50,000 ($54,400) grand prize.

Only one entrant can come out on top, and this year’s star-studded jury of luminaries like designer Patricia Urquiola, ceramicist Magdalene Odundo, and architect Wang Shu reportedly overshot their deliberation time by 15 minutes to select the winner. The grand prize went to Mexican ceramicist Andrés Anza, whose life-size sculpture I Only Know What I Have Seen looks like a cross between a dried-up cactus and a sea anemone. The anthropomorphic piece is built using thousands of ceramic protrusions across five puzzle-like components that come together architecturally. “I find patterns in nature really comforting, to see and recreate them,” Anza says. “It’s not about repetition or perfection—it’s about how tiny things can make a whole.”

In a first, the jury also selected three special mentions, many of whom combined two types of traditional craft. The Japanese jeweler Miki Asai makes sculptural rings topped with miniature vessels adorned with tiny shards of sea and egg shells. Heechan Kim, a sculptor hailing from South Korea, utilizes boatmaking techniques to create rotund vessels. The French ceramist Emmanuel Boos forged a luminous coffee table using 98 hollow porcelain bricks. Their work, along with the 26 other finalists, will be on view at Palais de Tokyo until June 9.

In Their Own Words: Sheila Loewe, who descends from Loewe’s founders, was thrilled to see a winner from Latin America. “A winner from Mexico will give the world a very strong message,” she told the Financial Times, “that the world is big—it’s not always the same places having the most beautiful pieces.”

Surface Says: After co-chairing the Met Gala, designing the costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, and now presenting the most applied-to Craft Prize yet, Anderson seems to be on a roll.

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From today until November 6, iF is accepting applications for next year’s Design Awards. It recently hosted more than 2,000 creative professionals in Berlin for the 70th edition of one of the industry’s most coveted and recognizable awards. This past year, 75 winning projects were chosen from a pool of more than 10,000 applications from 70 countries. Will yours be next? Register now to find out, and take advantage of early registration benefits until June 28.

A preeminent architect and bon vivant whose colorful lifestyle is the stuff of legend, Eileen Gray never had a chance to realize the full scope of her vision. One key exception is E-1027, the bracingly modern seaside villa overlooking the turquoise waters of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the South of France, but even it was historically misattributed to her then-lover Jean Badovici and then Le Corbusier, who defaced it in an act of personal animus. Much of Gray’s work, it turns out, exists at the margins of the field she helped shape. She designed nearly 50 works of architecture, but only three were ever realized. This detail stood out as an injustice to Crystal Ellis, Hillary Petrie, and Stephanie Beamer, the founders of furniture studio Egg Collective, who were scouting potential shoot locations for their Snake Eyes Collection and were stunned at how few works of female-authored historic architecture exist in the present day.

So for the studio’s latest edition of its beloved Designing Women series, they opted for a slightly different approach than previous iterations that focused on intimate group shows. Instead, they sought to recreate one of Gray’s unrealized projects digitally and in their New York gallery. They were particularly struck by the House for Two Sculptors, which Gray envisioned in 1933 but remained confined to her archives as a rarely published set of five pencil drawings and single chipboard model. When they discovered the plans—and noticed how Gray designed a live-work space around an “egg-shaped” atelier—they knew they needed to do the house justice. They contacted the museums holding Gray’s archives and quickly started bringing it to life.

Digitally realizing the House for Two Sculptors wasn’t the simplest task. Gray left scant details on materiality and interior detailing, so Egg Collective needed to “color in the lines” by carefully interpreting archival imagery to stay true to her vernacular. The results offer a contemporary take on the late architect’s vision, further reinforcing it as a staging area for sculptural work by showcasing their latest furniture. The sculptors for whom Gray originally designed the house remain unknown, but the studio is filling that void in their transformed physical gallery with works by contemporary sculptors Taylor Kibby and Molly Haynes. Rounding things out is Egg Collective’s latest work—a circular cork mirror inspired by the geometries and patterns found in Gray’s textiles. The trio fittingly named it “Eileen.”

When it opened in 2022, Hotel Ulysses shook up Baltimore’s hotel scene with top-to-bottom references to Art Deco movie palaces and the oeuvre of hometown hero John Waters. The boutique hotel perfectly embodies Ash’s 360-degree approach to hospitality—the design firm and hotelier manages, operates, and owns all of its properties, which have soared in popularity thanks to rich storytelling and an embrace of the idiosyncrasies of second cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and Providence. When the firm’s creative director Xavier Donnelly had the opportunity to expand Ulysses with a hotel clubhouse and event space in the historic townhouse next door, he didn’t need to look far to find inspiration for his next story.

Swann House takes its name from Louisa Sherlock Swann, the wife of seven-term Baltimore mayor Ferdinand Claiborne Latrobe, and their son, who all lived there. Donnelly reimagined their former residence as an opulent ground-floor parlor with exuberant touches that retain the architecture’s timeless appeal. Masterfully restored original details—dark wood paneling, plaster walls, multiple marble fireplaces, and high ceilings—pay homage to the building while carving an exquisite setting for Ulysses guests to keep their night going. “It feels like it’s always been here, but still attuned to the world around it,” Donnelly says. “In other words, it’s the perfect setting for unforgettable parties.” Our favorite detail? Dramatic muslin drapes enveloping a jewel box bar and framing the dining room, evoking the grand reveal of a Venetian theater stage.

Last week, the Ali Forney Center’s spring gala, among the nearest and dearest to New York’s creative sphere, returned to Cipriani Wall Street. Hosted by writer-actor Julio Torres, the evening brought notables from the fashion, dance, TV, and art industries together in support of unhoused LGBTQ young people. Ali Forney Center founder Carl Siciliano, along with Marshall Sprung and Lucina Rodriguez, were all honored, after which guests were treated to performances by Madison Rose and T Oliver Reid.

When was it? May 9

Where was it? Cipriani Wall Street, New York

Who was there? Cynthia Nixon, Tommy Dorfman, Aaron Rose Philip, Taylor and Liev Schreiber, Jovani Furlan, Tanner Richie, Fletcher Kasell, Mitchell Gold, Fran Tirado, and more.

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Located in historic Richmond, Virginia, McKinnon & Harris is the leading manufacturer of high-performance aluminum outdoor furniture for estates, gardens, and yachts. The brand’s master craftspeople practice old-world metalworking techniques paired with cutting-edge technology.

Surface Says: McKinnon & Harris crafts furniture to endure, outperform, and outlast all others. Each piece can remain outdoors year-round, even in the most aggressive environments.

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