THE chair #1

Designers and architects often become fixated on one type of furniture, and often, it seems, it is the humble chair. And amazingly enough, I am no exception to that rule. I LOVE all chairs...the more bizarre, the better. Well, to some extent. I am not too sure about these.....

(Mathias Bengtsson's 'Slice' armchair ca. 1999, sold at Sotheby's for $42,500)

(Jon Brooks 'Styx Ladder back', 1985, estimated at Sotheby's at $15-20,000)

OK, I am actually lying....I think they are all pretty fab. As I long as I don't have to sit through a Norwegian dinner party in either of them.

I am constantly distracted from any task in my own home when I happen to glace over at my dining chairs...the wonder that is THE Bellini.

Mine are in pure white. Can you believe my students never heard of THE Bellini...or even Bellini? I guess I am already getting old and outdated.

Hive Modern notes: "The Bellini chair is often hailed as a piece of modern sculpture in its own right... a versatile and low-cost chair that appeals to the senses. The Bellini Chair has the uncanny ability to elevate its surroundings... a grouping can transform even the most dreary sidewalk into an impromptu 'design happening' that excites and invites dialogue. "

DWR wonders: "Is there such a thing as an instant classic?" And decides they: "...think it may be Mario Bellini’s chair..."

(Despite their apparent love of the chair, there was quite a scandal recently when they completely and utterly ripped off the chair.... too much lesser effect and only slightly less cost)  See below.

Bellini himself noted that designing a chair is: "infinitely more complex than designing a skyscraper". "Tell me what chair you’ve designed and I‘ll tell you what sort of architect you are."

So you see I am not in poor company in loving this chair. But, this is not, in fact, THE chair I spoke of in the title. Bellini is merely a detour, but a very aesthetically pleasing one.

So, back to THE chair #1. My new client was able to pull off the deal of the year...(fellow pim'ers, you know who you are, this great client is one of you, by the way)

Total cost for the below item at a garage sale: $25.00.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The piece is upholstered in the most fabulously shiny yellow..somewhere between mustard and canary....leather. It's pulled nice and tight across the chair and fastened securely with large button tufting. And the seat is the most amazing bucket...just like a race car. I have not seen its equal outside of a BMW. And while it might look stiff and uncomfortable, it is in fact not uncomfortable in the least. It just screams cool.
 
So besides the fact that this chair is just plain cool, let's examine why it was also the deal of the year. Thanks to 1st Dibs, I managed to do a little comparison shopping.


Of course, the chair's form originates in the Victorian era when each room of a fashionable residence needed to be decorated in a different style...Rococo, Gothic, Renaissance... Everyone who was anyone needed a library to retire to and contemplate the world in. Oh, and it had to be fabulously decorated, often preferably in the Gothic fashion. But parlors also had to be fabulously decorated, and Queen Anne, although not the most popular, was one of the myriad styles that worked. It was also a period of great technological innovations in furniture design, and springs and tufting as we see in this piece became highly desirable. Horsehair stuffing was OUT and springs were most definitely IN.

A few 1st Dibs finds from that grand era:

An early 19th century chair from Coup D Etat, with no list price.

But this style was, of course, revived many a time. I am fairly confident my client's chair was birthed during those crazy days of the 1960's or 70's. You might assume all leather buttoned chairs in this era looked like these:

A great Barcelona chair from Morateur listed at... also no listed price.

 Groovy 1960's chairs from Barley Twist listed at a mere $850.

And yes, there were many, and strangely, they are somewhat reminiscent of my client's chair in some way.

So why do I assume mid-century for this chair? Well the most obvious is the color. This is not quite a natural dye of the 19th century. Its manufactured, its synthetic. And it is much more at home with the typical mid-century chairs shown directly above than the 19th century beauties shown further above. The construction is a bit too sound to be over 100 years old, and overall, the chair does not quite have the carving and wood detail and subtleties to the legs of a 19th century piece. And also, because of these:

From Larry Reilly Collection, 1960's (see how shiny and tight the leather is?  With an odd sythetic color?)

From Assemblage, 1960's (same thoughts and points as above)

I think these seem to just be the same creature. There is an element here that just makes these chairs easily relate to my client's. And now for the WOW moment.... the prices as listed on 1st Dibs for the above chairs:

#1: $2,800.00

#2: $2,750.00

Yes. Deal of the year. Well done! My only regret...it does not work with the living room color scheme!!!

MINIMAL/ANTIQUE

Today, as I sit watching the rain and hoping for a fabulous and fierce thunderstorm I know will never come to this high desert, I am feeling somewhat introspective. I thought we might revisit the ideas I touched upon briefly in the first blog and maybe I could better explain my design philosophy- if anyone is interested.

And I also feel as though I am waiting. Waiting for a number of highly fascinating topics that will arrive in the not-too-distant-future such as:
- The American Wing at the Met
- Norway, with various charming Norwegian homes and museums
- Several posts on utterly amazing furniture my current clients own

-And finally...photos of my very own condo, finally, finally finished. Which, of course, fully embodies all of my design philosophies and will make this current blog completely redundant.

So even if today bores you, you should return next week. However I will try my best to entertain.

So. Minimalism and the Antique. Minimal History. Minimal Antiquity. Antiquated Minimalism. Antiqimal. Minimantique. Still working on coining a term for what will one day become known as a ground-breaking and vastly influential style...of course best expressed in the work of Christa Pirl Interiors :)

So, while I greatly admire their work, the following (all, by the way, on the AD100 list) are not quite my cup of tea (as it was for some time in my younger and more innocent days). This, alas, is not the design that catches my breath. Because no matter how much I adore period rooms in a museum, any period room in any museum (I wrote me masters thesis on them), I am not going to make my clients live in a museum period room. But don't get me wrong, I love looking at these interiors, and am terribly glad someone is doing it, I just don't want to be that person.  (By the way, below is only a very small sampling of many in all catagories)

The amazing Paar Room at the Met Museum.  Vienna 1765-72.

1. Michael S. Smith (designer to the Obamas, by the way):

(photos courtesy of Architectural Digest, Michael's book &website)

2. Mario Buatta (the Prince of Chintz):

 

(photos courtesy of Architectural Digest)

Nor am I totally, utterly in love with uber minimalism (as I also was once in my younger days). While absolutely stunning, I don't want to resign my clients to the barren contemporary galleries of a museum either.

Some of the MOMA galleries:

1. Hariri & Hariri (check out their amazing pool house design in a town I used to call home: http://www.archdaily.com/33125/wilton-pool-house-hariri-hariri/)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   

(photos courtesy of Hariri and Hariri website)

2. Steven Ehrlich (often inspired by mud huts and feng shui, oh and- Latins)

 

(photos courtesy of Ehrlich website)

I sit in the middle...well, not in the middle, but I enjoy sampling from both ends. Maybe a house museum would be the best museum analogy? Like the Frick or the Cooper Hewitt (two of my favorites)? Elegant, full of beautiful things, but with an air of home and of course not stuffed full of stuff, so much so that one cannot see each item on its own. So, the real question I am sure you are asking- which designers do I in fact like(besides myself of course:)? Again I will note this is a small sampling...

The Frick:

1. Axel Vervoordt (the Belgian antiques dealer turned decorator): One of my all time favorites.  His aesthetic is so simple, so graceful, and so stunning. I am sold completely. Of course it helps to start with amazing European architecture that has been around for hundreds of years and likely clients who have had money for hundreds of years...

He has moments of complete simplicity that still vibrate with time and history.

(photos courtesy of Axel website)

2. Neoo Selon Neo by Marc Vergauwe and Jan Rosseel (more Belgians! Recently featured in Architectural Digest- May 2010) I love their subtle and sophisticated blends of traditional and modern.

(photos courtesy of the Neoo website)

3. Frederic Mechiche (now a Frenchie...man, I guess I have to move to a very specific part of the world.)  This happens to be Frederic's own home...lucky.

 

 

(photos courtesy of 'Designers At Home' by Dominic Bradbury)

So I will end here, or near the French/Belgian boarder I suppose. While I could go on for days about designers I love that work to varying degrees with the old and new, the minimal and antique (and they will come another day), I think these few probably best embody what I love- or I should say- the aspect, at the moment, I love most about the minimal and the antique together.

THE MAN IN THE BRICK PANTS VS. THE MAN IN THE GRANITE SMOCK

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit a little-known sculpture park in Salt Lake City. As I wandered, I could not help but think of my favorite sculpture park, in some ways quite similar, and in others, well... not. I thought that despite the detour, it would be interesting to spend this week comparing and contrasting these two. Just for fun and something just a bit different. We don't want anyone getting bored with too much old brown furniture!!!

So what, you may ask, is my favorite sculpture park? Well, to those of you who know me well, it won't come as a large shock that it is located in Norway. My homeland. My motherland. Well, at least my mother's land. I was privileged enough to be born to a true Viking Norwegian. So, the sculpture park has always been a part of my life; I clearly remember playing amongst the massive stone figures as a small child (and the figures looked really, really big then).

Anyway, the park is not special merely because it is located in Norway and I frequented it as a 10-year-old. I am biased, but not so biased I would introduce you to just any sculpture park for no reason at all. No. This sculpture park is the largest sculpture park created by one artist- in the world. Not only is it the largest park by one artist, it is also just plain big. There are 192 sculptures in the park, with approximately 600 carved or cast figures. It is just simply a joy to wander.

Vigeland Park is located in downtown Oslo. The artist, Gustav Vigeland, lived from 1869 to 1943. The park was built between 1939 and 1949, with most of the works created between 1926 and Vigeland's death. Vigeland was born to a crafty family in a small town in Norway.  When it was established that he might have some talent, he was sent to Oslo to master the craft of woodcarving. But alas, like so many creatives, his hopes were temporarily dashed and he was called home when his father died. But he made it back to Oslo when he was 19, and well, as they say, the rest is history. Sidenote: this in fact happened to my painter-Great-Grandmother as well. She was called back home from Oslo when her mother died. Unfortunately she never made it back to the big city and despite her talents, she had to content herself with painting the local church altarpiece (which is pretty fabulous).

Vigeland Park:

The Human Monolith, the focal point of the park:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Many of Vigeland's themes are biblical or center around basic human emotions: love, anger, pain. And many explore relationships between man and woman:
 

(Typical)

(Payback)

Or parents and children (which is more true-to-life?):

(Apparently Vigeland had some pretty major issues with kids and/or father figures)

And then some are just fun and odd (hey, he was making a lot of sculpture, it can't all be serious):

(above: the most photographed sculpture in the park) 

(Not sure what type of creature this is, but I fear it might get the better of her)

But the expressions and detail are simply stunning and certainly warrant a visit:

Now let's explore Utah's answer to Vigeland. The Gilgal park is indeed a park created exclusively by one artist, and is the only of its kind in the state (it is in fact classified as the only 'visionary art environment' in Utah...whatever that is). And this artist, like Vigeland, was quite interested in all themes biblical. Gilgal can boast 12 sculptures and over 70 engraved stones. While the scale is somewhat more modest, the real difference is the quirky-factor. The whole thing is more quirky than the most quirky of the quirky at Vigeland. But who doesn't love the quirk! And the most refreshing part about all of this, is that the artist was even self-aware when it came to the quirk! He often noted: "You don't have to agree with me. You may think I am a nut, but I hope I have aroused your thinking and curiosity." Good for you!

Not surprisingly, the artist, Thomas Battersby Child, Jr., was a proud Mormon. And he wanted to feature scenes near and dear to his heart. Of course, one would assume the founder of the Mormon church would feature prominently. And well, he does....just in a somewhat unusual way. Here is the church founder Joseph Smith. Or I suppose I should say Joseph Smith's head. One the body of a Sphinx.

Now, forgive me, but I don't see the connection. But then again, I am not Mormon. There might be a connection. Any thoughts anyone?  Maybe the Sons or Daughters of Zion could help us out?

Next we have a trip south of the border, to a work which just screams Frida Kahlo or well, any number of Latin American artists. They seem to have a thing for bleeding, exposed hearts. I am not sure what organ is represented on the right side...any guesses?

Next we come to the dismembered man, also a possible Latin American theme? Actually it is just supposed to be a disarticulated sculpture, not an actual person (biblical something-or-other). I still find it a bit disturbing and would not recommend it for small children:

 
But I do want to steal the foot for my house!
 

Here is another typical biblical theme...the locust. And this is a biggie. But I am not sure about the (again) disturbing man leering at me next to the locust:

But, no matter how odd these sculptures may be, you cannot say anything harsh about a guy who includes a bust of his wife in his very thematic sculpture park (even if she is stuffed into a dark niche):

Now, I might be poking fun, but I must highly and seriously recommend the modest but vastly fascinating sculpture park to anyone in the Salt Lake vicinity. It truly is a unique experience and worth the visit. See website details below.

Well, I think it has come time to explain today's title. One of the most important decisions any artist makes, is how he is to portray himself in a self-portrait. This is something to be taken very seriously and decided very carefully. And both the above men obviously took their time in the decision. Vigeland, the distinguished father of Norwegian sculpture, decided to go for a noble and proud stance, holding the tools of his trade, dressed in a modest smock.

But Child, he had a grander vision for himself:

Sure, there are tools of the trade, and a noble stance, but look at that jacket! And did you see the pants?! Child had a lot to say about his attire in this impressive self-portrait. First, he wanted everyone to be very aware of the fact that his jacket shown was, in his humble opinion, the greatest jacket ever made or worn. And he had been to Europe, he knew. I just wonder where he got it...but he never revealed that information...I suppose he wanted to be the only man in Utah with such a piece of finery. And the pants. What can be said about those pants? I assume he did not in fact wear brick pants, but for some reason felt compelled to show himself wearing brick pants. And this proved to be a costly and time-consuming decision. Each brick had to be cut and shaped prior to firing, and then reassembled like a 3d puzzle after firing. It took a long time. He went through a lot of bricks. But look at that detailed work! The effort certainly paid off.

So the only question would be: which is a better representation of the true soul of a sculptor?

Check out the Vigeland website: http://www.vigeland.museum.no/en/vigeland-park

Also check out this interesting blog, which is penned by a Sri Lankan living in Oslo: http://vigelandscupturepark.blogspot.com/

And of course, to see more of the brick pants: http://www.gilgalgarden.org/