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Go Phila: Behind the Design, July 2007
Download Article (.pdf)Hip Hotel Room At The Westin Philadelphia
A self-proclaimed “fabulist,” RJ Thornburg tells stories through design. One of Philadelphia’s most sought-after residential interior designers, he once made thousands of design dreams come true for Disney and a host of other corporate clients before going gallery-side. Now, as co-owner with Warren Muller of bahdeebahdu in Philadelphia’s Old City, Thornburg displays an eclectic mix of art and art-furniture, both functional and purely ornamental. Here, interior design meets installations, light sculptures and fantastical exhibitions.
RJ Thornburg, Interior Designer www.bahdeebahdu.com
For the uwishunu™ room at The Westin, Thornburg latched onto the campaign’s ideas of “a new way to stay” and “stay like a local” and drew design inspiration from contemporary urban scenes to narrate the Philadelphia experience in a hip, artistic way. Thornburg resides in Philadelphia with Muller.
Eileen Tognini, Designer/Curator eileentognini.com
An independent curator, Eileen Tognini has had a hand in the Philadelphia art scene for more than 10 years, organizing and curating art events, gallery shows, artist salons and sculpture gardens. With an emphasis on the work of emerging and established contemporary artists in the Philadelphia area, as well as New York, Tognini was a natural choice to commission artwork for the uwishunu™ room at The Westin Philadelphia.
Tognini studied both Design and Marketing at Drexel University before heading into the corporate world with the IBM Corporation. She also held positions as Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for a start-up software company and as Director of Marketing for an internationally-acclaimed landscape architecture and urban design practice in Philadelphia before circling back to the arts full-time in 2002.
These days, she is well-known in regional art circles for her annual Gallery in the Garden exhibition, held each September at the foot of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in rural Pennsylvania. Tognini currently serves on the board of Collab, a group of design professionals in support of the Philadelphia Museum of Art‘s Contemporary and Modern Design Collection. The daughter of an artist, and the mother to one, Tognini resides with her family in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Warren Muller, Lighting Design www.bahdeebahdu.com
The other half of the creative vision behind bahdeebahdu, luminary Warren Muller sees art in the everyday. His revolutionary lighting design is a by-product of found objects and ceramic sculpted pieces: teapot chandeliers, cheese grater sconces and traffic cone pendants, for example. A graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), Muller relates a background in improvisational dance to his experimentation with lighting mediums – blending curious, even unusual elements into one cohesive work of art.
Outside of the light sculptures on display in his showroom, most of Muller’s work is commissioned for specific spaces. In the uwishunu™ room, Muller has been called on to illuminate “unconventional Philly” through unique lighting concepts and is contributing three of his pieces to the room and bathroom. He resides in Philadelphia with Thornburg.
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