Q+A #019: Josh Itiola [Architectural Designer and Writer]
♟️ House like a Chessboard 📜 Project Poems 📐How Architects Live 🇧🇷 Gaetano Pesce Brazil Clock 💡Archive of Ideas 🎞️ Architecture in Adjacent Spheres
‘Storied Spaces’ is the RIALTO newsletter featuring ‘Q+A’, a bi-weekly column that features guest curators from the community, whom we invite to share inspiration from their home library. In each edit, you will hear from creatives we admire about the analogue inspirations that inform their work and vision.
Josh Itiola is a designer and writer working at the intersection of spatial design, material culture, and architectural storytelling. With a background in design consultation, interiors, and cultural programming, his work explores how space can shape experience, identity, and public life.
Instagram: @joshitiola
Website: joshitiola.com | Josh’s Substack
Q+A
[001] What is your favourite interior you’ve come across and why?
Favourite, as in favourite of all time? I don’t think I have a “favourite of all time” space, but a favourite interior I have come across recently and find myself revisiting is House in Barcelona by architects Enric Miralles + Benedetta Tagliabue. I am increasingly interested in seeing how different designers and architects live.
The images I have seen of this house grab me in a way that really pulls me in. A wanders’ dream house. It is a chaos that still feels inviting. In some views, it’s hard to tell where some rooms begin and end, and in other cases, there is a feeling of “am I allowed in this room?” I love the way the furniture inhabits the rooms. Like these pieces were just found and placed in the rooms, and probably repositioned around the house over time. Then, when you look at the house in plan, it becomes even more confusing, and then you look longer, and you begin to understand what’s happening and why.
There is a wonderful poem that Enric Miralles wrote to accompany the presentation of the project.
One line that I saw describing the feel of the house was:
“This house works like a chessboard.
The pieces move according to the rules of each object… They must
always return to the starting point to
restart the game…”
[002] What is your favourite piece in your collection?
Unfortunately, I love collecting things, so I think this idea of favourites changes over time. There are things I’m interested in, and things I learn about and become interested in. At the moment, my favourite object is a clock I found designed by Comme Des Garçons. I came across an image a few years ago of this clock while researching Takada Kawasaki, Comme des Garçons’ architect.
Suddenly, the clock came up for sale recently, and I had to jump on it. He was responsible for many of the shop interiors we all have grown to love. I haven’t found much about this clock, but that is part of my learning process and practice. It came about while trying to find as much as I could about Kawasaki-san's architectural practice, and added to the story. I also want to try to get the clock working again.
[003] Describe your dream interior if you had no budget restraints.
A dream apartment would still be a sort of classic Manhattan loft. Sounds cliché, but it's still a real dream. As I get older, I realize how impractical they are, but being from New York, I still think they are the coolest. I would need it to be a corner unit so I get light on at least two sides of the apartment. It is really about well-proportioned rooms, large windows with lots of natural light.
[004] What has piqued your interest lately?
I have been doing a bit of research surrounding the influence of architecture and spatial design practice in adjacent production spheres like theatre, film, and fashion.
I have been quite interested in the recent formation of practices around these forms of work. Studios like SUB, OMA/AMO, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, 2x4, Prodject and Bureau Betak that have incorporated an architectural element into their practice are super interesting to me.
[005] What’s one thing you own that you won’t ever sell?
I have quite a few things that I love in my collection that I’ll probably never sell. I own two pieces by Italian designer Gaetano Pesce.
I have one of his famous Broadway Chairs and also a clock in the shape of Brazil, which he designed while working there. I had the pleasure of working with him briefly and got both signed by him.
I. Alternative Advertising For Shiseido
A collection of Shiseido advertising work by Kazuhiko Ota, documenting a period when beauty, fashion, photography, typography, and art direction were pushed into more experimental territory.
The book shows advertising as a cultural and visual language, not just a tool for selling cosmetics. Probably one of my favourite finds in a while.
II. OMA/AMO. Rem Koolhaas. Projects for Prada (Part 1)
A dense visual and conceptual document of OMA/AMO’s research for Prada, exploring how architecture, retail, branding, technology, and cultural strategy could merge into a new kind of commercial space.
This is less a traditional architecture monograph than a working archive of ideas; the book captures Prada as a testing ground for spatial experimentation and brand-world building.
III. ‘AB Design’ by Yasuo Kondo
A book centred on the work and thinking of Yasuo Kondo, a Japanese designer who moved between architecture, interiors, and spatial design.
His work treats interiors not simply as decoration, but as constructed environments shaped through proportion, detail, material, and atmosphere. He explains his methodology towards his design work in depth over the course of the book.
IG Accounts to follow?
– @de_architects_
– @interiorandfilms
– @johnpawsonworks
– @lburri