|From the Editor| On the Cover Transformation has been at the top of my mind recently. It’s been a common theme coming out of the pandemic – when so many people and businesses had time to rethink their approach – and it’s no coincidence that we redesigned our magazine last quarter. But for all the attention given to the startling results of a major change, we too often gloss over the extraordinary efforts involved in the metamorphosis. There are Herculean feats of creativity, reflection and, sometimes, physical labour, that are unacknowledged, if not outright ignored, and which are integral to every successful transformation. In this issue, we celebrate these processes – and, of course, the results. Take the Lesotho Legend, the fifth-largest rough diamond ever discovered, which we showcase in its uncut form on page 56 as part of an eye-opening feature about Van Cleef & Arpels’ meticulous transformation of the stone into a stunning collection of jewellery. Among other transformations in these pages, you’ll discover a 137-year-old family estate in Norway that has been evolved over 20 years into a one-of-a-kind retreat (we are the first international publication to feature it), the first all-electric boat from iconic yachtmaker Riva and a new lodge in Chilean Patagonia that puts you plumb in the heart of the recently created national park. We wish you happy reading – and the best of luck in your own transformations, whatever they may be. — Christian Schwalbach ADORNING OUR cover is a work by multidisciplinary British artist Reuben Wu, part of the Lux Noctis project, an ongoing venture of planetary exploration depicting landscapes unbound by time or space, with influences from science fiction and chiaroscuro painting. Our cover image depicts the Pastoruri Glacier, in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range, and the halo you see hovering in the sky was created by the flight path of a drone light circling under a long exposure. Wu, whose work appears in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA, imagines familiar scenes “transformed into undiscovered landscapes which renew our perceptions of our world”. Although part of the larger project capturing places of fragility, the glacier proved particularly relevant for Wu. “Due to climate change, the ice is melting so fast that it may no longer exist in 10 years. This project felt like preserving the memory of a landscape.” reubenwu.com 18 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
