ALVARO SIZA: Iberian minimalism
08/03/2011 § 2 Comments
Designer Feature vol. 5
Sports Center, Llobregat, Spain
I love the work of Siza. His projects arise as natural reactions to the physical, cultural, and, I could almost say, spiritual environment which they inhabit. He masterfully blends *vernacular architecture with minimalism to create poetic references to place while exploring issues of form and space. When I think of Siza’s work I always imagine these large spans of white-washed walls or these intricate plans where every turn and edge has been thought out. That’s part of his genius – being able to work from the largest scale of the site plan to the minute details of where the concrete meets the wood.
The following are some of my favorites of his many projects…
*vernacular architecture uses methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs.
Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal
Boa Nova Tea House, Matosinhos, Portugal
Mimesis Museum
Mimesis Museum
Mimesis Museum
Mimesis Museum
Mimesis Museum
Mimesis Museum
Church of Marco Canaveses, Portugal
Church of Marco Canaveses, Portugal
Leca Swimming Pools, Leca da Palmeira, Portugal
Leca Swimming Pools, Leca de Palmeira, Portugal
Leca Swimming Pools, Leca da Palmeira, Portugal
Leca Swimming Pools, Leca de Palmeira, Portugal
Portugal Pavillion, Lisbon, Portugal
Serpentine Pavillion, London, UK
Anyang Pavillion, Korea
Anyang Pavillion, Korea
Ibere Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brasil
Ibere Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brasil
Ibere Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brasil
Ibere Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brasil
Ibere Camargo Foundation, Porto Alegre, Brasil
House in Mallorca, Spain
House in Mallorca, Spain
House in Mallorca, Spain
House in Mallorca, Spain
House in Mallorca, Spain
Serralves Museum, Oporto, Portugal
Serralves Museum
Serralves Museum
Tolo House
Tolo House
Tolo House
Tolo House
Tolo House
Insel Hombroich Architecture Museum, Germany 2008
EDWARD WESTON: Clouds, Trees, Water
07/02/2011 § 3 Comments
Artist Feature, vol. 6
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Though Weston is mostly known for his still lifes of inanimate objects such as peppers and cabbage leaves, his landscapes explored the same subject of form that guided most of his work. Here, in Clouds, Trees, Water Weston captured the flora and scenery at Point Lobos,CA and the desert landscape of Oceano,CA.
If you look closely through his images you’ll note why Edward was a part of the f/64 group (which included legendary landscape photographer Ansel Adams). His images often employed the use of deep depth of field allowing for all planes of the images to be crisp and in focus (achieved through closing the aperture to f-stop 64). As in his still lifes, curves, cracks and shadows seem to bring the objects to life as Weston’s compositions create movement, contrast, and texture.
Perhaps intentionally, or not, you can start to see traces of human characteristics in these images. Limbs within clouds. Bodies within trunks. Faces within stones. You back up to recognize your imagination is playing with your sight but nonetheless clues suggesting anthropomorphism are in place. Now I wonder, did Weston see the same mirages and were they what drove him to take these photographs in the first place?
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Oak, 1929
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Iceburg Lake, 1937
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Oregon Coast, 1939
Cypress, Point Lobos, 1929
Cypress, Point Lobos 1930
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Rain over Modoc Lava Beds, 1937
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White Sands, 1946
Oceano, 1936
Tracks in Sand
Untitled Rock Formations
Stonecrop and Cypress, Point Lobos, 1941
White Dune
Surf, 1938
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE…
>PHOTO EXPERIMENTS VOL. 3
>PHOTO EXPERIMENTS VOL. 2
>HIROSHI SUGIMOTO: SEASCAPES
ARCHITECTURE: The Case Study Houses
06/25/2011 § Leave a Comment
In post-war Southern California the residential housing boom inspired a group of prominent architects sponsored by Arts and Architecture Magazine to tackle what they saw as the current issues in the typical American home. Each architect was to deal with one of these problems and resolve it in the best way they saw fit using materials and methods that would be readily available and easily duplicated. The program that was to be known as the Case Study Houses ran from 1945 up until 1966.
The group of architects included many of the big names of Mid-Century Modern architecture and design. These included Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, Rodney Walker, and JR Davidson. Many of the Houses (such as #22 on the left) were shot for the magazine by the now infamous architectural photographer, Julias Shulman.
The Case Study Homes changed the way Americans lived and built their homes. These West Coast models were soon transported throughout the country. The Stahl residence (#22), probably the most well-known of the Case Study homes, became an icon of American architecture and the new optimistic “Modern” way of life.
The homes generally sought to blur the lines between inside and outside by using innovative curtain wall building technologies that would allow for wide spans of glass. By placing load-bearing steel columns on a grid on the interior of the home, the facades would be free of structural responsibilities. The floor plan of the American home was Modernized by opening up walls and blending functions into large spaces; thus the marriage of the living, dining and kitchen to create the Great Room. The architects also extended the living space to the exterior by incorporating elements such as pools, large overhangs and paved decks that would further encourage the use of the outdoor room.
House #22 by Pierre Koenig
House #22 by Pierre Koenig
House #22 by Pierre Koenig
House #22 by Pierre Koenig
House #22 by Pierre Koenig
House #21 by Pierre Koenig
House #21 by Pierre Koenig
House #21 by Pierre Koenig
House #20 by Pierre Koenig
House #20 by Pierre Koenig
House #16 by Rodney Walker
House #16 by Rodney Walker
House #16 by Rodney Walker
House #9 by Eames and Saarineen
House #9 by Eames & Saarinen
House #9 by Eames & Saarinen
House #9 Eames & Saarinen
House #8 by Charles and Ray Eames
House #8 by Charles and Ray Eames
House #8 by Charles and Ray Eames
House #7 by Thornton Abell
House #7 by Thornton Abell
House #6 by Richard Neutra
House #6 by Richard Neutra
House #5 by Whitney R. Smith
House #4 by Ralph Rapson
House #3 by Wurster & Bernardi
House #2 by Spaulding & Rex
House #1 by J.R. Davidson
GIO PONTI: The 20th Century’s Renaissance Man
03/16/2011 § Leave a Comment
Designer Feature, vol. 4
When you think renaissance man in the world of design Gio Ponti is your guy. This man was a painter, an industrial and furniture designer, an architect and the editor and founder of the quintessential Domus (1928) and Stile magazines.Born and raised in Milan, Ponti was an advent propagandist for the love of architecture and design which he wrote of in his 1957 collection of essays Amate l’Architettura (published in english as In Praise of Architecture).
Ponti utilized Domus to openly explore diverse topics of his concern and express his personal views all the while maintaining a clever openness that established the magazine as Europe’s most influential architecture and design magazine.
Gio Ponti was in Milan around the same time as the avant garde Futurists and Group 7 were exploring their ideas for radical change. Though he was around the key figures of these movements Ponti remained focused on finding the “finite form” in design rather than revolutionizing existing dogmas. He had his own ideals of design that bloomed from Modernism but were more particularly concerned with context, comfort, function, lightness and elegance. He was an admirer of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus but was certainly not one of those “glass box boys”, as Frank Lloyd Wright once clarified.
Villa Planchart, Caracas 1955
Villa Planchart, Caracas 1955
Villa Planchart, Caracas – This classic Modernist house was designed in 1955. Here Ponti created almost every aspect of the project from the architecture and interiors to most of the furniture and objects as well.
Villa Planchart, Caracas 1955
Villa Planchart, Caracas 1955
Villa Planchart, Caracas 1955
Villa Planchart, Caracas – The garden from this house was designed by infamous Brazilian landscape architect who often worked with Niemeyer and was responsible for the original plans of Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road and the cobblestone boardwalks of Rio de Janeiro, Burle Marx.
Model for Villa Planchart in Domus 1955
His daughter summarized Ponti’s career with the following remarks, “Sixty years of work, buildings in thirteen countries, lectures in twenty-four, twenty-five years of teaching, fifty years of editing, articles in every one of the five hundred and sixty issues of his magazines, two thousand five hundred letters dictated, two thousand letters drawn, designs for a hundred and twenty enterprises, one thousand architectural sketches. It was a great deal, and all from one man”.
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INTERIOR DESIGN:
Villa Arreaza, Caracas 1956
Villa Arreaza, Caracas 1956
Villa Arreaza, Caracas 1956
Gio Ponti Hotel in Sorrento, IT
Gio Ponti Hotel in Sorrento, IT
Gio Ponti Hotel in Sorrento, IT
Gio Ponti Hotel in Sorrento, IT
1970 Il Manifesto della Casa Adatta by Gio Ponti
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FURNITURE & INDUSTRIAL DESIGN:
Bilia Table Lamp designed 1931 by Ponti is currently under production by Fontana Arte
0024 Lighting Pendant designed in 1931 by Ponti is also currently in production by Fontana Arte
Diamond Lounge Chairs by Gio Ponti
Designed in 1953 by Gio Ponti and made in Italy for Singer & Sons this table is available on 1st Dibs for $9,750
Flatware set designed in 1960 available for purchase on 1st Dibs
Superleggera Chairs in black and white from 1957 available on 1st Dibs
Italian walnut chest by Gio Ponti from 1950′s on 1st Dibs
Rocker from the 1950′s designed by Ponti produced by Cassina
Gio Ponti in Caracas, 1954
1ST DIBS ON VINTAGE FINDS
09/12/2010 § Leave a Comment
Some of my top picks from 1ST DIBS!
1ST DIBS is a website that consolidates the listings of the best antique dealers all around the States. I don’t mean just the Baroque or Neo-classical pieces that come straight to mind when hearing “antiques”. Though 1st dibs does carry beautiful pre-20th Century designs, I’m mostly excited by the Art Deco, Hollywood Glam, and Mid century – Modern finds.
Each object on 1st dibs is a design relic – they’re the real deal. I love to browse through the listings simply to observe the beauty of the details and finishes of each piece. This has brought me better familiarization with the elements of each era of furniture design (such as materials, forms, colors, ornamentation, etc) and has totally changed the way I look at contemporary design.
Now when I peruse the pages of catalogs I have the “classics” in mind so I know where the recent designs are evolving from!
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[Images above from top left: Florence Knoll credenza $8,500, Swedish gondola arm chair 1940, Art Deco iron door and transom,"Gerosa" by Joe Richards realist oil painting, Continental brass lamp 1970, Geometric brass wall sculpture from 1970's $750, Dorothy Draper chest from 1950's, Papa Bear chair by Hans Wegner $14,500, Angelo Donghia low table from 1970's, Org table by Fabio Novembre 2001, Mark Shaw portrait of Coco Chanel #7, Paris, 1957 $800]
More of my top picks from 1ST DIBS
[Images above from top left: French 1950s metal chairs, Modeline 1960's white table lamp, Italian 1950's white ceramic & gilt jars $550, Nude sculpture from 1960's $1,800, John Vesey's Maximilian chair 1959, Convex mirror wall sculpture 1972 $8,500, Jackie Carson "Desert Dawn" acrylic on canvas, Max Ingrand for Fontana Arte 16 light pendant, Tiffany & Co. antique 18K gold letter opener, WWII US naval telescope, Dining table by J. C. Moreux, Beijing bedside chest, Vintage nickel chair by Warren Platner for Knoll 1980, Plexiglass vase fish tank by Nicola L. $2,800]
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To preview these designs and so many more, VISIT: www.1stdibs.com
P.S. Don’t miss Introspective Magazine (the online mag on designers, their inspirations, styles and favorites) !!!
HOLGA, WHO?
08/08/2010 § 2 Comments
TOY CAMERAS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Toy cameras, as they are lovingly referred, were first discovered by North Americans in the 1960′s. Originally fabricated in China, these inexpensive cameras contain the most rudimentary elements necessary for photography resulting in images full of distortions.
So why are they still being produced and why are people like me interested in them?
Holga 120 gfcn
In this day and age of ever-escalating Megapixels low-tech cameras, such as the Holga and the Diana, are utilized specifically for the unpredictable kinks inherent in these cameras.
Camera technologies continue to become more complex with every passing moment . It is apparently (for those of us trying to keep up) an effort so furious and urgent that it closely ties only the race to cure cancer or the release of the next iphone (8g – do you have a 4g? I’m sorry you’re way behind already. I know, I know, you got yours today.)
Toy cameras are exactly on the other end of this spectrum where aesthetic effects such as vignetting, blur, and light leakage produced from these “imperfections” are embraced and essentially take total prominence over the technological reliability and precision offered by digital photography. Since these cameras also allow its users to explore medium format film using really affordable gear (Holga 120N on Amazon.com $21.50) many amateurs and artists alike have been playing with these “toys”. The results are remarkable and have inspired me to purchase my very own.
Image from Flickr
FYI: Medium format film (typically 6 x 4.5 cm or 6 x 6 cm) is larger than regular film (24 x 36mm) though smaller than large format film (4″x5″). The larger the film/negative, the bigger you can enlarge the print (similar to Megapixels in digital cameras).
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TO GET YOUR OWN TOY CAM:
Amazon.com – for a vintage find
Urban Outfitters – for a new baby as seen below
Diana, Urban Outfitters
Holga, Urban Outfitters
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MORE INFO:
CARLO SCARPA (Venice 1906 – 1978 Japan)
08/03/2010 § 2 Comments
Designer Feature vol. 3
Olivetti Showroom, Carlo Scarpa
This Italian architect based out of Venice, Italy drew me in with his use of materials and his meticulate attention to detail. In his work every corner, every connection is resolved with the utmost sensibility. This of course means Scarpa did not leave behind an encyclopedia of works. However, the ones he did complete were true jewels.
the architect
In his works he would blend brass with limestone and stucco and brick. He would play with precedents of geometry such as circular Chinese openings in garden walls and corbeled pyramids in a sanctuary’s ceiling. He was doing innovative conservation of historical buildings way before Herzog and de Meuron’s Caixa Forum in Madrid.
He would play with the historical through a sophisticated and poetic understanding of materials.
It was love at first sight.
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OLIVETTI SHOWROOM, VENICE
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FONDAZIONE QUIRINI-STAMPALIA, VENICE
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MUSEO DI CASTELVECCHIO, VERONA
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MUSEO CANOVIANO, POSSAGNO
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BANCO POPOLARE DI VERONA
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LA TOMBA BRION, SAN VITO
Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa
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DETAILS
Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa
KNOLL: A History of Modern Design
07/27/2010 § 2 Comments
In 1938 Hans Knoll founded the company hoping to bring together a roster of respected designers and innovative products. In 1943 he married Florence Schust, a young and talented designer who had studied at Cranbrook under Saarinen and worked with the likes of Walter Groupius (Bauhaus). Together they would establish a fruitful partnership that would accelerate the growth of Knoll through an expansive list of collaborating designers, imaginative layout concepts and excellent quality products.
Since then, Knoll has been responsible for “inspiring, creating, manufacturing and popularizing some of the greatest pieces of furniture ever made”.
TIMELINE OF DESIGN CLASSICS BY KNOLL:
1925 WASSILY CHAIR, Marcel Breuer
1929 MR LOUNGE SEATING, Mies van der Rohe
1930 BRNO CHAIRS, Mies van der Rohe
1938 HARDOY CHAIR, Hardoy & Bonet & Kurchan
1940, MOMA FURNITURE COMPETITION 1ST PRIZE, Eames & Saarinen
1945 1ST KNOLL SHOWROOM IN NYC, Florence Schust
1946 GRASSHOPPER CHAIR, Eero Saarinen
1947 SCISSOR CHAIR, Pierre Jeanneret
1948 WOMB CHAIR, Eero Saarinen
1950 STACKING CHAIR, Ilmari Tapiovaara
1952 WIRE MESH CHAIR, Harry Bertoia
1954 LOUNGE SEATING, Florence Knoll
1954 END TABLE, Florence Knoll
1955 HANS KNOLL DIES & FLORENCE ASSUMES PRESIDENCY
1955 TABLES, Isamu Noguchi
1957 TULIP COLLECTION, Eero Saarinen
1958 SEATING, Vincent Cafiero
1960 PETAL TABLE, Richard Schultz
1961 EXECUTIVE COLLECTION, Florence Knoll
1963 SUZANNE LOUNGE SEATING, Kazuhide Takahama
1965 EXECUTIVE SEATING, Charles Pollock
1966 WARREN PLATNER COLLECTION
1966 OUTDOOR COLLECTION, Richard Schultz
1970 LUNARIO TABLE, Cini Boeri
1971 SPOLETO CHAIR, Ufficio Tecnico
1975 LOUNGE SEATING, Gae Aulenti
1984 ROBERT VENTURI & DENISE SCOTT BROWN COLLECTION
1985 HANDKERCHIEF CHAIR, Vignelli design
1988 TOLEDO CHAIR, Jorge Pensi
1992 FRANK GEHRY WOOD COLLECTION
1993 CACTUS TABLE, Lawrence Laske
1997 KNOLL MUSEUM OPENED
1997 JENS RISOM COLLECTION
1999 FOG CHAIR, Frank Gehry
2003 CECELIA CHAIR, Emanuela Frattini Magnusson
2004 DIVINA, Piero Lissoni
2005 X3, Marco Maran
2006 SM1 LOUNGE COLLECTION, Shelton Mindel & Associates
2007 THE ROSS LOVEGROVE COLLECTION
Since 1938
