Lot 233

So smart and modern. Frank Lloyd Wright two piece sectional sofa, manufactured by Heritage Henredon, with a Taliesin design base.

This would be my choice as a foil to French salon furniture.


Treadway Toomey Galleries

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Round and round we go

Circleback Chair by Edwin Lutyens

This chair was designed in 1930 for two of the smaller bedrooms in the north west wing of Government House in New Delhi. Authoritative sources indicate that the original pieces do still survive and that they are now in the President of India's private apartment.

It is a good example of the paradoxical nature of much of Lutyens's work. While, on the face of it, we have a fairly conventional chair, there are certain aspects of the design that are surprising. The extravagant sweep of the semicircular arm is a case in point, as is the narrow void at the front of the seat. The degree to which the geometrical relationship between the circles of the back is precisely worked out is also of some interest. The reducing size of the voids is predetermined by a mathematical formula, as is the thickness of the rings which lessens as the circles become smaller. - Candia Lutyens

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Lost to a world in which I crave no part

Plan for the Motherwell house.


A bedroom showing the unique floor of inlaid tree sections set in cement.



Robert Motherwell inside his adapted Quonset hut residence in Georgica, 1950 by Hans Namuth.


Internal view of the east facade.


East facade of the Motherwell House, 1985.


Though East Hampton figures briefly in the life of the painter Robert Motherwell, the village played a significant role in shaping his career and his legacy. The youngest, wealthiest, and best educated of the Abstract Expressionists, Motherwell first came to the East End during the summer of 1944 to visit the older Surrealists in exile. A snapshot records the twenty-four-year-old playing chess with Max Ernst outdoors in Amagansett. In the Hamptons, Motherwell met Mark Rothko and other American artists; painted the semi-figurative works The Emperor of China and The Homely Protestant; initiated his most critically acclaimed series, Elegy to the Spanish Republic; and coedited the lone issue of the journal possiblities. Oils featuring linear, somewhat representational forms on ocher-covered surfaces eventually gave way to canvases with larger-scaled, more muscular black and white shapes. After he purchased a four-acre lot at the corner of Georgica and Jericho roads in East Hampton for about $1,200, Motherwell commissioned a house and studio from Pierre Chareau, the French architect who co-designed the Maison de Verre, a Paris landmark of the International Style. Although the architect used two prefabricated Quonset hut kits purchased for $3,000 each, costs mounted when doors, windows, balconies, and flooring had to be made by hand. Motherwell sold the house in 1952. Chareau’s only work in America, it was leveled in 1985. Motherwell later summered in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and spent his last years in Greenwich, Connecticut. In his seventies, he said about his East Hampton period, “I did my best work there.” - written by Phyllis Tuchman for The Parrish Art Museum


Further reading, Robert Motherwell's Life in the Hamptons by Mary Cummings.




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Similar, but not quite the same

The founders of the beauty business were three self-styled czarinas who built their castles in New York City. Here, each professed to be very different from (and, of course, far superior to) her rivals. Actually, they bore such an extraordinary resemblance to one another that they might have emerged from a modern gothic novel, concocted by a singularly imaginative author. - taken from The Czarinas of Beauty by Stefan Kanfer.

The three were Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, and Estée Lauder. And, they were very similar in many respects. As Kanfer states, each was a short, hyper-ambitious, social-climbing saleswoman who loved wealth, invented her past, dumped her husband when he seemed a drag on her career, peddled emollients and powders that promised eternal youth, and dined out on her aphorisms.

Of the three, it was Madame Rubinstein (December 25, 1871 – April 1, 1965) who possessed the most flair. Not only in business, but in every expression of her personal style. From her magnificent collection of jewels to her choice of interior decoration, she had that something extra the other two ladies lacked - an innate sense of grandeur.

She famously said, There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
She was half right.




Graham Sutherland
Helena Rubinstein in a red-brocade Balenciaga gown, 1957
Helena Rubinstein Foundation




The foyer of Madame Rubinstein's salubrious apartment at 635 Park Avenue, designed by J. E. R. Carpenter.
The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter




Dining Room with Dali Mural
The image ran in the April 1948 House & Garden.
Conde Nast




Marie Laurencin
Helena Rubinstein wearing a yellow shawl, 1934
Helena Rubinstein Foundation




Helena Rubinstein: Over the Top

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Sri Lanka's answer to Barragan

Geoffrey Bawa, FRIBA (1919–2003).


Highly personal in his approach, evoking the pleasures of the senses that go hand in hand with the climate, landscape, and culture of ancient Ceylon, Geoffrey Bawa brought together an appreciation of the Western humanist tradition in architecture with needs and lifestyles of his own country. Bawa has exerted a defining influence on the emerging architecture of independent Sri Lanka and on successive generations of younger architects. His ideas have spread across the island, providing a bridge between the past and the future, a mirror in which ordinary people can obtain a clearer image of their own evolving culture. In 2001, Geoffrey Bawa recieved the prestigious Chairmans Award from the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for his lifetime achievement... - David Robson



Residence, Colombo, Sri Lanka.



Jayakody House, Colombo, Sri Lanka.


Exterior detail of inset carved wooden door frame.


The hall.


Interior view from back room to main living area.


View from courtyard through to living area.
Photographs by Christian Richters.




A.S.H. De Silva House, Galle, Sri Lanka.







Bawa's estate, Lunuganga.


Exterior view from garden, taken by Helene Binet.



One of the most exciting moments was the opening up of vistas..not based on prearranged formality..the garden planned itself... - Geoffrey Bawa





Geoffrey Bawa: The Complete Works by David Robson

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Luxe, calme et volupté

Images from Menil House, article by Bruce C . Webb for Texas Architect.


The 1950s modernist house in Houston that Philip Johnson designed for art collectors John and Dominique de Menil was one of the first houses built in the International Style in the United States. Even more intriguing are its atypical interiors done by the couturier Charles James. As a foil to the modernist structure, Mrs. de Menil said at the time, they wanted something more voluptuous.

Restored in 2004 by Stern and Bucek Architects, not simply as Johnson designed it, but as the Menils lived in it.



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Looky Loos

Adolf Loos by Ralf Bock
Photography by Philippe Ruault


Adolf Loos (1870-1933) was an early-20th century Viennese architect known for his radical facades and for his writings. This volume reveals for the first time the sensuality of Loos’ interior designs, demonstrating that Loos was not an architect of the “white modern movement” but rather fought against it as he saw the work of purism move in the opposite direction of what he had envisioned. He believed in culture, comfort, intimacy and privacy, advocating the evolution of tradition and utility, rather than revolution and the permanent invention of formal design.



Villa Müller
Nad Hradním vodojemem 14
CZ 162 00 Prague 6 - Střešovice
Czech Republic

Adolf Loos 1930

My architecture is not conceived by drawings, but by spaces. I do not draw plans, facades or sections... For me, the ground floor, first floor do not exist... There are only interconnected continual spaces, rooms, halls, terraces... Each space needs a different height... These spaces are connected so that ascent and descent are not only unnoticeable, but at the same time functional.













studio international archive - Adolf Loos: the new vision

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Speaking of Lutyens

The RIBA is hosting an exhibition of the work of Le Corbusier, the first to be held in Britain for more than twenty years. The venue is the Crypt of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. This is the first time the Crypt will be open to the public since the Cathedral's completion in 1941.

For more on the exhibition visit wallpaper.com


Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, by Sir Edwin Lutyens, completed in 1941


Kitchen from Unite d'Habitation, Marseille


Furniture by Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret


Model of the church of Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp

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Family affair

Through the industry of his granddaughter, Candia Lutyens, the furniture designs and spirit of Sir Edwin Lutyens lives on in Lutyens Furniture Ltd.


The Napoleon Chair designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens

The horsehair used for the Napoleon chair is woven on the same looms that provided Sir Edwin with horsehair for his original. This design is also well suited to leather and other hard wearing fabrics.


The Robert Napoleon Chair

Sir Edwin's son Robert modified the original Napoleon chair by lowering the lower arm and by adding a cushion. Unfortunately, making this model unsuitable for horsehair.

The light fitting above is the Mercury Ball Pendant, originally designed by Sir Edwin for the Viceroy's House New Delhi in 1919. The central chrome ball concavely reflects all aspects of its hanging space. The surrounding metalwork is bespoke.

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Must read

this, it references Alain de Botton and John Ruskin. And, it is wonderful.

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Batgirl

Pipistrello lamp: designed by the multi-talented Italian designer Gae Aulenti in 1966 for Martinelli Luce, Italy.
An absolute favorite. Thankfully, seldom seen in contemporary use. After all, only a very few are actually that cool.

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Now this makes sense

Summoning Scandinavia, in this month's Architectural Digest, designed by Shelton, Mindel & Associates.

While this is not what I do, I find the clarity of vision and line, like all their work, very impressive. They are one of the few architectural firms that can, and should, decorate a house. What a difference compared to the recent Venezuelan house. To my mind's eye, at least, this house and the choices made to create it, make sense.



The wife is of Swedish descent; the family summers each year in Sweden; and the children speak Swedish. Their background suggested that the architects build on the family’s roots with a Scandinavian interpretation of Modernism, which is kinder, gentler and warmer than the more dominant Teutonic versions.









...in their individuality, the furnishings never disappear into the homogeneity that Scandinavian design suffers in the watered-down forms often seen today. “The pieces celebrate democracy but break free of any homogeneity,” says Mindel.


Text by Joseph Giovannini/Photography by Michael Moran

Ettore Sottsass

A conversation with architect and designer Ettore Sottsass about his curation of the exhibition of Cartier design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He also discusses the influence of postmodernism on his work and his designs in Italy.

Charlie Rose 29/11/2004

Physician, heal thyself ?

Edward Hopper, Sun in an Empty Room

I too have a house in my head, as I believe do all of you. I might even have several. That is probably why I often get sidetracked and distracted when making choices for our own house. I loose sight of the house we are in and chose things that would be better suited to somewhere else. Should we, as decorators, decorate our own houses? After all, doctors don't treat themselves.
I would be very interested to know who you would choose to do your house and why? Or, is the thought of someone else doing your house unthinkable?

I know the architect I would want and be completely happy giving carte blanche to, Bobby McAlpine, founding principal of McAlpine Tankersley.
Past architect would have to be Luis Barragan.
Now, as for the decorator...hmm. Tricky. You show me yours first, then I'll show you mine.

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CASA BARRAGAN

Fabulous mood board style clip of the architect's own house.