He is at his core—a storyteller, even if his austere design approach and he himself may indicate otherwise: His work is about silence and strength,” declared the polymathic Belgian designer between sips of coffee on a recent afternoon.
But for the last half-century, Axel, now 72, has established himself as the world’s foremost conjurer, bringing the hidden narratives of a thing or a place out of obscurity—be it a derelict medieval alley in Antwerp, a cache of shipwrecked Ming Dynasty porcelain, a minimalist painting, a Venetian Palazzo, or, say, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s house.
