Ito Kish
Manila
Metro Manila’s Makati CBD is an anachronistic showcase of modern architecture massed in ‘villages’ with names like Legazpi, Salcedo, and Urdaneta. Its towering structures brandish MNC logos but down below the streets bear mostly Hispanic names. This is where renowned Filipino designer Ito Kish has decided to establish a home – among sleepless high rises and frenetic streets – creating a quiet sanctuary that overflows with art, antiques and beautiful objects that he has assembled over years of intrepid travels.
Art &
Life
At 446.7 square feet, Ito’s current studio feels like a corner in his last shop – a celebrated former home in another ‘village’ that he had decked out completely with award-winning furniture of his own design, as well as with hauls from Denmark and finds from Bali, or whichever part of the planet he visited recently. He has made it comfortable and inviting, hanging forty-eight artworks salon-style on one wall, and finding spaces for others that didn’t fit. The immediate impression it creates is one of willful randomness, until one sits down and begins to make sense of the heady mix.
An antique dining table is repurposed into a work desk, and paired with an antique chair. Collectibles share the tabletop with a computer and a vintage lamp
The private facilities of the apartment are spartan – a compact kitchen by the entrance and a bathroom accessed through the bedroom. A huge sliding partition ‘creates’ a bedroom that separates it from the hall, but with beautiful objects to look at, Ito mostly keeps the partition open. A round table set for four sits at the center of the hall, while the proper dining table, a wooden European antique, is pushed up against the window and serves as a work desk. A king-size bed dominates the bedroom, but a night-table laden with collectibles and an antique glass cabinet filled with white cotton shirts easily steal attention.
A couple of years ago, when he decided to take a sabbatical, Ito shuttered his shop, dispatched all merchandise to a warehouse, and moved into a small apartment. He then traveled extensively, occasionally returning to ‘feather his nest’. Now that he is more or less settled, he has his eyes on new enterprises, with the stunning jewel box of an apartment as his base.
A couple of years ago, when he decided to take a sabbatical, Ito shuttered his shop, dispatched all merchandise to a warehouse, and moved into a small apartment. He then traveled extensively, occasionally returning to ‘feather his nest’. Now that he is more or less settled, he has his eyes on new enterprises, with the stunning jewel box of an apartment as his base.
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The well-travelled designer has amassed souvenirs from his trips to various places, including masks from Africa, porcelain from Europe and China, and a mask from Indonesia
A taxidermy deer head surveys a collection of antique lithographs, contemporary paintings, and drawings, some of which are reflected on the oeil de bouef mirror
