Yabu Pushelberg

Glancing round the superb atrium of la Samaritaine, a contemporary reinterpretation of the Parisian Art Nouveau architectural jewel, completed in 2021 pausing momentarily at a Pukka armchair designed for Cinna the previous year and looking out at the landscape beyond, it’s difficult to imagine that George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg’s first “real” project was a little neighbourhood laundry in their home city of Toronto. 

That was almost 45 years ago. «We had graduated a few years prior to that, then one day, we chanced upon each other in the street. We began chatting and the idea of sharing a studio was mooted. George couldn’t work at home any longer, explains Glenn. Me neither ! He’d seen one he really liked, but the rent was too high. So we began sharing a space, and then our projects ! » They smile. The professional synergy was evident. There was clearly strength in numbers, and from there it was only a short step…to a laundry. «Our aesthetic and design philosophies were so similar, continues George. Glenn and I would begin working on a design, on opposite sides of a page, and then meet in the middle, by which point it was impossible to make out which of us was which.»

The duo then took on New York, working on the fashion stores which were springing up all over the Big Apple. « There was a freedom and an incredible energy in the Seventies and Eighties. We made pretty much every rookie error possible, they say. We were naive, we’d never worked for anyone before. That taught us everything, and we really perfected our approach, without really making plans. Just designing. For ten years, we gained almost nothing. » Until one day in 1984, when the duo was entrusted with the design of the Club Monaco fashion boutiques. « We were very lucky. Our work was noticed, and projects flooded in. » In 1998, their work on the Monsoon restaurant in Toronto won them the James Beard Award. Then the duo went global: hotel projects, luxury homes, many of them in Asia, then the USA and Europe, where they collaborated with numerous manufacturers, designing furniture and lighting. Their studio grew. 

Today, George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg have a team of more than 110. «We bring the same attention to detail and the same depth of reflection to all our work, by concentrating on how we want to make people feel. Our passion is to create something better than what’s been done before, they conclude. Basically, we are designing the world in which we want to live.» The key to success ? Possibly. The key to elegance? Undoubtedly.

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