Monthly Archives: September 2011

The jittery posture of the façade belonging to the New Museum of Contemporary Art of New York as envisioned by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. In 2007 The New York Times wrote: Its ethereal forms hover somewhere between the legacy of a fading bohemian downtown and the ravenous appetites of a society awash in new money. (See more of their florid description here.)

Well, the laundry of 2007's money has long since ended its cycle but no matter; It's still a good face.

Thomanek Duquesnoy Boemans, Hotel Marriott Berlin-Mitte

Speak low when you speak, love
Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon
Speak low when you speak, love
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, we're swept apart, too soon

Speak low, darling, speak low
Love is a spark, lost in the dark too soon, too soon
I feel wherever I go that tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here and always too soon
Time is so old and love so brief
Love is pure gold and time a thief

We're late, darling, we're late
The curtain descends, ev'rything ends too soon, too soon
I wait, darling, I wait
Will you speak low to me, speak love to me and soon

Speak Low, lyric by Odgen Nash, music by Kurt Weill

Speak low if you speak love.
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1

A garden, for all of its nurturing and comfort qualities, is also a kind of aggressive space.

But, it's a friendly type of aggression: One that forces us out of our minds and fixations and brings us softly into the here and now.

But once out, you're rewarded. It quiets the mind and tongue, it raises the immune system, improves brain function, relaxes the heart and breath — it de-stresses. While overwhelming the senses it tames them at the same time — like a kind of open-eyed nap.

You don't need a forest to benefit, even a small space will do.

We need its sanctuary, literally: We could think of it as a matter of life and death (see links above).

A 10-meter magnolia tree is planted in the center of Chile's National Stadium where dictator Pinochet in 1973 imprisoned thousands of political prisoners who were tortured and killed. After planting the tree, the stadium doors are open to the public as a park; offering a space to stop, look again, and remember. An impossible, cathartic soccer match played before 20.000 people, closes the project after a week of activity.

- From Sebastian Errazuriz's website.

It appears the old lady still has some hip left in her yet.

The September 2011 issue of Travel+Leisure magazine backdrops these Dorothy Draper interiors "at her flaming best" from the Greenbrier Resort into the mix.

...blowsy floral patterns, baroque plaster pediments, shimmering chandeliers... lavish antebellum air...

Maybe when it's done right, bold doesn't get old. By its own description the Greenbrier is the quintessential American resort; and maybe it is: If anything, the U.S. isn't a place known for the small gesture or modesty. To that end, the Greenbrier nails it.

Here, a staircase gone full blowsy.

It might've been comedian Steven Wright who asked: Why do we call them buildings; shouldn't they be called builts?

In the world of architecture, perhaps the most famous unbuilt of all may be that of Moravian born Austrio-Hungarian architect Adolf Loos. Loos was an early zealot for modernism and, as was made clear in his famous essay Ornament and Crime, a militant decorative reactionary. Said he:

The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of everyday use.

Loos also created what he called the Raumplan which suggested that houses shouldn't be divided into rooms separated by walls. Instead, they should flow from a more continuous living space: Clearly, an idea whose time has come.

In 1928 he completed a design for a proposed Xanadu-styled dwelling for legendary American ex-pat singer, dancer, actress, and apparent enchantress, Josephine Baker.

Exactly how and why the design came about has long been the subject of speculation. She may've commissioned Loos for the design. Or not.

Here's a model of the legendary building:

And the tabloid version: At the winsome age of 19, Josephine Baker arrived in Paris to find work as singer and dancer. She quickly became an overnight sensation. This success allowed her into the most cultured circles of the Parisian fabulous. It'd be here that Loos encountered her and, like many others, was immediately smitten. Adopting her as his muse, he designed a grandiloquent residence unbeknownst to La Bakaire. He presented his vision of Chez Baker to her in 1928. (She would've been 22 at the time.) How in her youth, even as a sensation, she'd be able to afford a palace clad in black and white marble, split into three levels with spiraling staircases, a cylindrical tower, and an interior second floor pool is a mystery. (See floor plans here.) Baker's response to either the design or designer is unknown.

Why Loos would be enthralled with La Bakaire isn't hard to imagine: Leaving New York behind as "the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudville," her dances and costumes in the Folies Bergères and other productions were famously provocative. She was beautiful, exotic, and a fluent jazz dancer at a time when jazz was the vanguard. But even this pales to her experience during the war in the French Resistance. She also spoke at the podium before Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech. (She was offered a leading role in the post-King civil rights movement: She turned it down.) As the victim of much racism in America and abroad (Hitler was not a fan) she'd adopt a dozen children from around the world, her so-called Rainbow Tribe, to make a point on diversity and compatibility. In his later years Loos would boast that Baker had taught him the Charleston.

But, clearly, there was more to Adolf Loos than leery fan-boy infatuation. His mix of austere classicism with modernist streamlining would meet with success.

Above, Villa Karma: His collaboration with architect Hugo Ehrlich is considered an early example of the modern house (Loos was the primary designer 1904-1906; Ehrlich would finish it). Loos's personal life was not nearly as balanced and harmonious as his professional one, particularly his health. (He was diagnosed with cancer early in his career.) Below; The Villa as seen on the inside.

The Villa Müller, below*: Due to Loos's failing health, the architect Karel Lhota was hired to help with the design. The client himself was a successful concrete contractor who had been working on some innovative uses of reinforced concrete which became part of the building's design. The building itself would have a colorful history of its own. (Thank you Veronica G. for the heads up!)

This sensibility, especially when applied to furnishings, would prove prescient: Below, a timeless chandelier from 1911 and a tumbler set from 1931.

Another renowned Loos unbuilt: This Doric column-styled tower was a proposal for the Chicago Tribune from 1922. Created for an architectural competition that would lure a gallery of marquee names including Walter Gropius, Adolf Meyer, and Eliel  Saarinen (father of Eero). Alas, none of them would prevail; the winning entry, which one contemporary critic said would set back architecture 50 years, has since been described as a "fruity Gothic pile."

Feeling his pain for the decorative in the everyday object, an homage to the maestro from artist Laurent Craste: Petite étude pour «Adolf Loos’s wet dream».

Before the pyramids there was trim. Stacking reaches into our deep, dark primordial past: An ancient shelter from Hvar Island, Croatia, below.

And may continue into the avant garde of our future as well.

Ironically, despite our leaps and bounds into high technology its nature's low technology that we keep coming back to again and again: The birds and bees seem to have a lot more to offer than explaining erotica.

This digital age rendering of the termite mound suggests a model for a sustainable future in Los Angeles. Harvard professor Margaret M. Fain's concept includes space for urban farming, gray water reuse, and rain collection. The idea is to gain independence from municipal water sources for landscaping: Great, if it works.

Artist Andy Goldsworthy goes primordial with this dry stacked stone sheepfold.

Straight up: Constantin Brancusi's Endless Column from 1938.

Icelandic artist Sigurdur Gudmundsson goes under the weight of his metaphors, below.

Felt up: Artist Marie Watt from her series Blanket Stories.

Below, Madrid based architect Arturo Franco creates office space from an erstwhile slaughterhouse. The walls coverings are stacked reclaimed roof tiles.

Everything in its place if a little out of its time: Vintage Fenton glass Hobnail stacking ashtrays.

Books and enchiladas:

Illusion of grandeur: A globular stack by artist Ulrike Palmbach rendered in wood.

Stack obsession: Artist Tara Donovan constructs mountains, clouds, spheres, and blocks out of industrial plastic and an odd block of toothpicks.

And other possibilities:

The Stacked House by architects Herzog & de Meuron for the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany.