Creative Facilitation: Dims.'s Lila Allen on Visual Culture, Writing, and Content Creation
By Julia Gamolina
Lila Allen is a writer and editor based in New York City, and is the Director of Content for the design brand Dims. For the past three years, Lila was the managing editor at Metropolis magazine, where she covered architecture, product, and interiors, and project-led the production of each print issue. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Architectural Record, and the book Design for Children (Phaidon). In her interview with Julia, Lila talks about being a facilitator of creativity, advising those just starting their careers to be generous with their time, spirit, energy, and creative efforts.
JG: When did your interest in all things design, architecture, and built environment first develop?
LA: I came into this by way of visual culture. I grew up with a mother and father who were both interested in visual art and they put me on that track. I wanted to be an artist at first, but my mom encouraged me to pursue a liberal arts education, and I realized that my talent is more in writing and that form of expression, rather than artmaking.
How did you get your start in the field, and how did you become interested in architecture specifically?
After college, I started working at an art museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, which was just opening up. It’s such a jewel box museum. It was designed by Mario Botta. It’s this kind of cubic terra cotta building that has been carved away to have this massive, beautiful column below a cantilevered gallery - all that to say, it’s an architecturally striking building in a sea of corporate 1990s, early 2000s, financial buildings! When it opened, being such an icon in the city and a brand new museum, there was an enormous demand to have tours.
Because I was there when it first opened, there were thousands of school kids wanting to come in, teachers, senior groups, all kinds of people, and I was on a very small team of people who led groups through the building. I was talking to them about the art of course, but in doing the same route every day through the building, I came to appreciate how architecture shaped the experience. It actually encouraged certain behaviors in the way people experienced the art, and it also determined where certain art pieces were placed. How does someone approach this floor-to-ceiling window that looks across an atrium and onto a sculpture on the fourth floor? When they approach it, are they scared of the height; are they intrigued; are they adventurous? I had never thought about any of that before in such a practical way. It was that experience, in my twenties, that got me interested in architecture and design.
How did you eventually end up at Metropolis magazine?
I moved to New York and started working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was working in the marketing division of their merchandising department, which is a really interesting meeting of two worlds - retail and high-brow art! Even if not everything we sold was exactly my cup of tea, these artifacts, for many, were means of digesting their experiences and acquiring tokens of their love for the museum. I think that even though I was just handling the marketing product for it, specifically the catalog and the website, working with something that was a democratic, accessible object that anyone can get was very meaningful. While visiting the museum might be a once-a-year, once-a-decade event for some, these objects are things they can interact with every day - and it’s that everyday aspect that really appealed to me.
I ended up going to grad school to study design criticism, which allowed me to apply my interest in visual culture, writing, and content creation of all sorts to the field of design and architecture, and that is where I have been since. It’s been a winding path but I think it all makes sense and it ties together.
Did you join Metropolis right out of grad school?
I did not - I started working at Rockwell Group while I was in grad school in 2016. I was working there a few days a week initially just as a temporary, extra hand in research because they were talking about producing a book. I was helping them flesh out ideas of what it could look like and different routes it could take. Which actually now has come to fruition, years later, and I did get to work on it.
I would also write freelance for whomever was interested in having me write for them, which brought me some interesting projects. I worked on a cannabis blog for this gourmet brand. One of the more exciting projects I worked on was a book for Phaidon that came out a few years ago, Design for Children.
“I’m a big believer in following opportunity.”
I love that book - it’s so well done!
The photo editor for that book deserves a serious bonus because they did such an amazing job of finding consistent imagery. That was a project I worked on for about nine months or so with the author Kimberlie Birks, who is wonderful.
A year in a half into working at Rockwell Group I had coffee with Avinash Rajagopal, and he had just been appointed Editor in Chief at the magazine [Metropolis]. I had sent him an email saying congratulations - I knew Avi from my time at grad school because he would come in as a guest critic, and I had done a little bit of work for him and his editorial consultancy Superscript. That was one of the freelance gigs I had layered in there [laughs]. He asked me if I’d be interested in applying to be the Managing Editor, which I was very interested in because it’s a job that let me take advantage of my natural organization skills, my interest in facilitating other people’s creative work, getting to do a little bit of that creative work myself, and also getting to write.
You just recently announced your new position at Dims! Tell me about that - how it came about, how you knew it was time for something new, and what you’ll be doing.
Yes! As of last week, I’m the Director of Content for the design brand Dims. They’re an American company, around two years old, and focus on sustainably made furniture by diverse, emergent designers. And - critically - it’s affordable, which as you likely know, is rare for well-designed furniture. In the role, I’ll be overseeing content relating to product, social media, and brand editorial. Stay tuned on that front, as there’s more to come in the upcoming months!
In general though, in this role, I’ll be considering content in a completely holistic, multichannel sense, which is a new challenge I’m excited about. And this is my first true start-up experience. I’m hoping that the tools I’ve been developing over the last decade will all get to be put to use one way or another.
Lila at the Metropolis Magazine office
With this move, where do you feel like you are in your career today?
I feel incredibly lucky to have had the career I’ve had so far. The through line from beginning to end is bringing people together with ideas, whether that’s an in-person event like I was producing at the museum, or bringing a piece of the Met to someone’s home, or whether it’s bringing larger ideas in architecture and design into the offices of practicing designers through Metropolis. In the last year, I got the chance to curate a ceramics show which, going back to the answer at the beginning on how I got into design, it was by way of art. That [curating the show] was the first time that I acted as a curator of an actual exhibition and it felt like a natural extension of this work. I hope that as I continue to perform in this role or adjacent roles, that I can continue to expand my practice in that way. I don’t consider myself a designer, I’m a facilitator. Where I am at this point in my life is enabling other people to do amazing work and to give them as much support as I possibly can.
I don’t know what the map is here - I was not expecting, when I had coffee with Avi, that he would ask me to apply for the job at Metropolis. Same with Dims. - I had no idea that a simple copywriting assignment would turn into a full-time role. But you go into it with an open mind, see if it feels like a good fit, and both did. I’m a big believer in following opportunity.
Over a few short years, I feel like I have learned a ton about the field, and I was able to make that connection more formalized between art and architecture and design. I think my favorite part of the job is just meeting interesting people - and I’m not just blowing hot air here - like you!
“The other part of this [pandemic] is that we’re having to understand each other as humans in a way that I don’t think we’ve had to in the workplace before, and that is important.”
Right back at you - that’s my favorite thing about Madame Architect. I feel lucky that so many people are willing to talk to me and share their lessons learned.
Looking back at everything, what have been some of the biggest challenges so far in your career?
What I struggle with the most is balance, and my own anxiety. Especially in highly detail-oriented jobs, it can be hard to “turn off.” And the truth is that often, to do things really well, I’m not sure that you can - there are compelling ideas, trends, narratives, people literally everywhere. Which is actually where this quarantine has been such an interesting exercise. I feel like I can’t possibly be alone in this, but this has completely changed the way that I work, the way I understand the world, the way I understand my community, and the way I think about space. The way I'm living in my home is unlike how I've ever lived before! It’s almost like going back in time. We’re all stranded in our little cabins in the woods.
A big struggle that I’ve had as a person who sometimes works a little too much, which is on me - I have a hard time cutting myself off - this has forced me to reconsider how I do that. It has also given me a window into my husband’s work and him a window into mine. We have traditionally kept very different hours and I think he was surprised by how many meetings I was having - even in quarantine! On Zoom of course. It’s given us a lot of quality time. We’ve been together for thirteen years at this point, and I feel like we have learned a ton about each other in the last few months.
Who are you admiring right now?
There are a lot! In the field of writing and criticism, I’ve really enjoyed Kate Wagner, the founder of McMansion Hell, and a fellow Southerner. She has a unique approach to architecture criticism, has a fun voice, and is very readable. I’ve also been enjoying working with Kyle Chayka who is a cultural critic and recently wrote a book on minimalism that’s been getting a lot of attention. He is a superb writer and brings in a very comprehensive, culturally aware critique of design.
I also admire people who have the ability to stick to a certain beat and get really in depth. Audrey Gray is amazing at writing about sustainability. I’m not one to focus on a niche area and stay with it all the time. In terms of practicing architects, I really enjoy Jennifer Bonner. She taps into domesticity and design conventions of the American South - things like faux finishes, mobile homes, and Southern roof typologies - which, being from the suburbs in North Carolina, I definitely appreciate. But she also does very contemporary explorations of CLT, a sustainable building material.
Finally, there are also many women I know from North Carolina who are working in the arts who I admire for their entrepreneurial spirit and their ability to build and nourish communities. My friend Jess Moss, for instance, started an arts residency program in Charlotte called The Roll Up. It’s in a home in a residential neighborhood and they exhibit the work in their garage. Another friend of mine, Rebecca Henderson, with the artist Grace Stott, has launched mobile art galleries in the backs of U-Haul trucks, and went to Art Basel - but also to breweries and other sites around Charlotte.
For those starting their careers - not necessarily in media or architecture, but in the built environment as an ecosystem of things - what advice do you have for them? Would your advice be any different for women?
My advice generally would be to keep an open mind, try a lot of things, and put your own work out there, whatever form it may take. It doesn’t have to be super serious. The way that I got started writing professionally was because I started a celebrity gossip blog!
[Laughs] That’s amazing, what was it called?
It was called Lionel Richie’s Haircut [laughs]. It was very short lived and I did it while I was living in Boston for a summer and not really working, but it gave me a chance to be voice-y and irreverent and to put my writing in front of people who I didn’t know, but who invited me to do cultural criticism for them, which led to getting my first editorial job. I was literally posting about Lindsay Lohan [laughs].
I think if you have raw talent and you’re putting it out there, and you’re also a nice person, things tend to work out. And that is advice I would give as well: be generous with your time, spirit, energy, and creative efforts, and you’ll find that it comes back to you.
As far as advice for women specifically, it’s to be a little more generous with yourself, a little kinder, and more patient. I think there are certain structures that women face. I’m in my mid-30s and fortunately my family has not put a lot of pressure on me about having children but I’m starting to have to think about that a lot more and what that means. Is having my own baby something that is important to me? All I can do right now is just be generous and patient - I don’t know the answer to how I feel about that right now. The other part of this [pandemic] is that we’re having to understand each other as humans in a way that I don’t think we’ve had to in the workplace before, and that is important. It also ties into the writing I did about architecture and motherhood, and design and motherhood. It’s all about appreciating the human experience and the fact that people are dealing with a lot of different pressures at the same time. We don’t live in a single channel, and we’re now being confronted with that, all at the same time and all at once. I think that is going to leave us with some learnings - I hope it does.