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Designer Travel - a list by Chris
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A guide to design sources and artisans from around the world.
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Terra Do Brazil
First to recommend
Description
Brazil’s mix of Asian, African, European and indigenous cultures and tastes has created some very startling styles. And some of the chicest pieces are made of such unlikely “found” materials as shaving brushes, bicycle tires and squeegee heads.
One of the major players is Terra Do Brazil, a consortium of manufacturers operating from Doral, FL. Its furnishings include the Landscape series, which makes use of <i>vime</i>, a fast-growing vine (some Americans are calling it “the kudzu of Brazil”). The vine is cut and tied together with rope, like so many bundles of sturdy kindling, to form the frames of sofas and beds and the structure of occasional pieces. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 13, 2006
Bonnet House
First to recommend
Description
artist and arts patron Frederic Clay Bartlett and his second wife, Helen, may have been reluctant to see George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte leave their home for the Chicago Institute of Art, but perhaps not too reluctant. They were fortunate to live the sort of life depicted by Seurat, except their “island” was a 35-acre Florida oasis stretching from the Atlantic to the Intracoastal Waterway. At the heart of it was their beloved Bonnet House. Built in 1920 and named for a native yellow water lily, it was modeled after traditional plantation houses to take advantage of ocean breezes and encourage easy indoor-outdoor living. The Bartletts entertained frequently, serving cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in a bamboo-lined bar and dinner in the courtyard. The loggia facing the lagoon was a favorite place to retire for post-luncheon coffee, especially after 1931, when Bartlett’s third wife, Evelyn, added two bay windows to the drawing room looking onto the loggia. This was a minor architectural move, but it had a major effect, enhancing comfort and livability indoors and out. The curved bays invited more light and air inside, and at the same time shaped the outside space into a welcoming sitting area. Sisal and rattan furnishings made the “room” complete. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 13, 2006
Adamson House
First to recommend
Description
Like a sample book sprung to three-dimensional and very colorful life, the Adamson House, a historic property on the beach in Malibu, California, demonstrates the wonders that can be worked with tile, specifically tile made by the Malibu Potteries (1926–1932).
And every bit as rich as the tile work, and perfectly in keeping with the Spanish Colonial Revival style of the house, is the ironwork. Architect Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls & Clements, the firm better known for the commission for William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon, completed the house for Rhoda Rindge Adamson, daughter of the Potteries’ founder, and her husband, in 1930.
All the exterior lighting fixtures are fashioned of iron, and in designing them, Clements factored in an element that is often overlooked: how they function during the day. On the second story terrace, for instance, above a tile “warming” bench built into a wall shared with the chimney, is an oversize light of filigreed wrought iron. It is supported by a lyrical bracket set in the midst of an expanse of white stucco. Clements recognized the value of white space as a quiet pause amid the jingling of lively tile patterns and as an important participant in shadow play. By day, the spiky fixture, aided by the brilliant California sun, casts an exaggerated cactus-like shadow. Come nightfall, electrical illumination alters the silhouette and the mood.
A second example: Lining the perimeter of the terrace is a parade of crook-like bishop’s stanchions. At night, the hooks provide support for individual lanterns or a string of lights. Clements could have designed them to be only temporary fittings, to be installed for festive occasions. By making them permanent he expanded their role, transforming them into decorative elements that add rhythm and a flourish to the parapet. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 13, 2006
Cosmo's Cosmos
First to recommend
Description
“It can’t just be about money; it has to be about what you love,” explains Lisa Purdon of the Brooklyn furniture store Cosmos Cosmos, which she and her business partner, Cosmo Prete, opened in 1998. The two started out as artists, fabricating furniture into sculpture. Eventually they turned their passion for finding interesting modern pieces into a home-furnishings boutique unlike any other. Tucked in a corner of the store, for example, on top of an Eames lounger is a Paul McCobb table. And, depending on whether Purdon and Prete have rearranged the display area that day, you’ll see everything from a $350 settee in need of reupholstering (it has an amazing frame!) to a $15,000 mint-condition Jens Risom sofa; from a ship’s spotlight (set directors like them) to Breuer’s Wassily chair (White or black? You choose) hanging from the ceiling. The partners’ rationale: “We choose our furniture based on what we think is beautiful.”
Also unlike many stores, Cosmos Cosmos offers “full service,” meaning it buys on request for all client types. “We listen to our gut,” says Purdon, “but we also listen to our client. If someone tells us he or she wants a blue sofa, we’ll find the coolest blue sofa our eyes have ever seen, based on the person’s budget and specifications.”
So if you are looking for a white vinyl sofa or a Neil Small mirror (note: Cosmos Cosmos is one of the few original collectors in the country), or if you just want to hang out in a Corbu chair all day, then step into this high-brow, high-end shop. As Purdon puts it: “We are a little rock-and-roll in our approach to art and commerce, but we are very educated and sophisticated about mid-century modern.” (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 13, 2006
ESPASSO INC.
First to recommend
Description
On 38th Avenue at 34th Street in Queens, New York, Espasso, run by Sao Paulo native Carlos Junqueira, sells Brazilian modernist furniture from the 1930s to the present. Included are reissues of classics from renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer, as well as new pieces such as the Anel chair by Ricardo Fasanello, and Etel Carmona’s wooden tabletop objects, which are crafted from rare, government-approved wood. “Brazil had, and still has, an important modernist movement that many people are not aware of,” says Junqueira. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 11, 2006
The Noguchi Museum
First to recommend
2 people recommended this item
Description
The Noguchi Museum, founded and designed by Isamu Noguchi to house his art and archives, deserves an unhurried visit. This prolific artist, who was equally comfortable designing gardens, sculpture, lighting, furniture, paintings and ceramics, left an impressive body of work when he died in 1988. Much of it can be seen in this warehouse space, which he bought and converted in 1985. The museum has always been a hidden gem, with its tranquil Japanese gardens and bright, naturally lit open-air galleries. Now, thanks to a major renovation, it welcomes visitors year-round. Among other items, the gift shop sells Noguchi’s ingenious Akari light sculptures, lamps that still seem as stylishly original and functional as they were when he designed them in the 1950s. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 11, 2006
Moss
First to recommend
2 people recommended this item
Description
If you’re interested in finding museum-quality design objects in a retail setting, head to Moss on Greene Street in New York City. Here, you’ll find icons of twentieth-century design along with with the best of what’s current. In the 10 years since it opened, this idiosyncratic brainchild of former fashionista Murray Moss has helped define the Soho design scene. Bridging decorative arts, industrial design and art, Moss models his displays after museum exhibits, showcasing each item with the date, designer and provenance, so even if you can’t buy, you can learn. Major names in modern design, such as architect Gaetano Pesce, are always on display in revolving exhibits. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 11, 2006
BDDW
First to recommend
Description
BDDW is the creation of 36-year-old Tyler Hays, an energetic painter and sculptor turned furniture maker. His voluminous space on Crosby Street near Grand in New York City was an abandoned sweatshop before he stripped it and painted it white. BDDW is stocked mostly with Hays’s creations, including his Lake Credenza, which features a hand-rubbed laquer finish, choices of three premium hardwood doors and a blackened steel and bronze base, as well as hand-carved ebony handles and a walnut interior. Hays also works with selected artists to develop limited-edition pieces, such as Miwa Koizumi’s porcelain lamps, of which no two are alike. Exotic-looking slabs of domestic wood line the walls of Hays’ store. The owner eventually turns the sculptural forms into furniture; in the meantime, they help make the showroom itself a design destination (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 11, 2006
Galerie Meryanna Loum-Martin
First to recommend
Description
A few years ago, Meryanne Loum-Martin and her husband, Gary Martin, an ethnobiologist, moved to the Palermaie oasis and opened a stylish guest-villa compound that’s been publicized around the world. Now the lawyer turned designer has added Galerie Meryanne Loum-Martin to the property, setting up shop in the vast double-height living room of her modernist house and a smaller adjacent room that she once used as a library. The walls are hung with paintings by African artists and all around are grand wood sofas inlaid with camel bone and broad-seated iron chairs covered with hand-woven fabrics Loum-Martin commissions in Senegal. The woven leather-and-straw carpets are from Mauritania, and here and there, vintage French Art Deco pieces add a smart colonial edge. Given that it’s a house that masquerades as a shop (by appointment), it’s no wonder that the atmosphere is decidedly homey. If you kick off your shoes and choose to settle down for a spell, don’t worry: Loum-Martin does it, too. And if you’re lucky, she just might invite you to stay for lunch. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 10, 2006
Khalid Art Gallery
First to recommend
Description
In Marrakech, Morocco, the Khalid Art Gallery, where photos of celebrity shoppers—model Kate Moss, soccer star Zinedine Zidane, Hillary and Bill Clinton—attest to its reputation among the international elite. Owner Khalid el Gharib is the city’s leading purveyor of atmospheric furniture and accessories: eighteenth-century North African ceramics, Mogul-era marble fountains from India, antique embroidered silk portières, Syrian chairs and cabinets inlaid with snow-white bone (Naomi Campbell bought a lot for her bedroom). The stock of the two-story shop is more broadly orientalist than it is specifically Moroccan, an encyclopedic array of exotica from across the Arab world. (via Elements of Living)
Updated Apr 10, 2006
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