In Forth Worth, Texas, travertine marble, glass, meticulously chosen shades of concrete, and generous swaths of natural light come together to create Louis Kahn’s sublime Kimbell Art Museum. North portico with reflecting pool. Photo by Robert LaPrelle. © 2013 Kimbell Art Museum But how well do those ingredients hold together as a fragrance? Perfumer Julian Bedel has sought to put the ineffable Kimbell Art Museum in a bottle. While his Buenos Aires scent lab and boutique Fueguia carries perfumes based on such unlikely and abstract subjects' smells as Charles Darwin, Malevich’s Suprematist manifesto, or “the breath of a whale,” Bedel’s newly launched Chamber No. 1 for New York design boutique Chamber is an olfactory “architectural analogy” to the art institution. “It’s a concept using actual molecules that are present in the materials,” says Bedel, which include the cement, the marble, and even the streams of sunshine that give the museum’s interiors their ethereal qualities. “Solar light is difficult to recreate, but one can work in the ozone aspect of air or the effect of evaporation and lift of certain molecules.” And what’s the end result? A spray-on babe magnet that’s unique to the wearer. “It’s a ...
In Forth Worth, Texas, travertine marble, glass, meticulously chosen shades of concrete, and generous swaths of natural light come together to create Louis Kahn’s sublime Kimbell Art Museum. North portico with reflecting pool. Photo by Robert LaPrelle. © 2013 Kimbell Art Museum But how well do those ingredients hold together as a fragrance? Perfumer Julian Bedel has sought to put the ineffable Kimbell Art Museum in a bottle. While his Buenos Aires scent lab and boutique Fueguia carries perfumes based on such unlikely and abstract subjects' smells as Charles Darwin, Malevich’s Suprematist manifesto, or “the breath of a whale,” Bedel’s newly launched Chamber No. 1 for New York design boutique Chamber is an olfactory “architectural analogy” to the art institution. “It’s a concept using actual molecules that are present in the materials,” says Bedel, which include the cement, the marble, and even the streams of sunshine that give the museum’s interiors their ethereal qualities. “Solar light is difficult to recreate, but one can work in the ozone aspect of air or the effect of evaporation and lift of certain molecules.” And what’s the end result? A spray-on babe magnet that’s unique to the wearer. “It’s a ...