Functional Design

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Features Classic Example of Regency Era Design

fine arts magazine — Pair, monopodia supported armchairs, likely Irish (Dublin), c. 1810. Gilded wood, modern upholstery; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift, Horace Wood Brock. Photo © MFA, Boston.

The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811 — when King George III was deemed insane and unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent — and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father. The term Regency is therefore used to describe works of art produced in England between the late 1790s until 1837 when Queen Victoria ascended the throne. [1] Fine Arts MagazineMore

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Soon to Display Object of Baroque Era Artistry

In 2007, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired a spectacular twenty-eight piece silver-gilt toilet service made by the Augsburg goldsmith, Johann Erhard II Heuglin (master 1717-1757), around 1725-1730. It represents the height of the Baroque style in Germany.

Left: Twenty?eight piece toilet service in original leather case marked by Johann Erhard II Heuglin (master 1717–1757) and Philipp Jakob I. Jäger (active 1715–1763), (German (Augsburg), about 1725–1730). Silver gilt, glass, boars’ bristles, original leather?covered case with wrought?iron hardware. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fine Art MagazineMore

Faithful Restoration of Rhode Island Architectural Landmark by Centerbrook Architects

Fine Art Magazine — The original Ocean House, Bluff Ave. view at the turn of the last century

More than half a dozen grand hotels once graced the Watch Hill, peninsula on the western shore of Rhode Island, but a decade ago only one remained, Ocean House, an aging and ailing wooden behemoth whose top floors had been condemned for years. Odds were increasing that this iconic landmark, its era long past, would soon vanish like the rest.

By 2003, bumper stickers around Watch Hill implored “Save Ocean House.” The 1868 renowned, resort, ocean front hotel, where the silent movie “American Aristocracy” starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was filmed, had just closed for good. Its future was manifestly uncertain. If Ocean House was torn down, could a litter of McMansions be far behind? Fine Art MagazineMore

New York & Connecticut Architectural Firms Exhibit Green Building Solutions

Contemporary art is the art of our times. Although time can seem linear, exacting and in some ways predictable, life today can nevertheless feel chaotic and filled with contradictory agendas. Health issues, economic woes, war and global warming seem to headline the news constantly. Artists, sensitive to their surroundings, perceive these sudden shifts as critical matter deserving of attention and often attempt to address them before their importance fades. Occasionally, the realities of today’s world are skillfully combined with the sensitivity of the artistic perspective. Connecticut’s, Sacred Heart University, Gallery of Contemporary Art, addresses this union of aesthetics and technology in its current exhibition, The Art of Sustainable Architecture, in meaningful and dramatic ways.

“Sustainability is a topic of our time,” Sophia Gevas, SHU’s gallery director, says with conviction. “We can no longer ignore the environmental challenges our world is facing. These problems are real and there are real solutions that are both beautiful and quantifiably which can make a difference in our quality of life.”

above: Exterior Facade & Courtyard of the General Theological Seminary, NYC
Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners. Photo Credit: Fed Charles
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Green Architecture Company Works with UNICEF to Build African Schools

Grain Storage Huts in Nigeria. photo courtesy Patricia Thrane

“It takes a village to raise a child,” is the oft quoted ancient African proverb when discussing education and building community. Partners for Architecture, an architecture firm in Stamford, CT, that bases its mission on this core value, flew into action when approached by UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) in October 2008 to create one master plan for eighty schools to be built across the borders of four civil-war ravaged African countries: Republique de Guinea, Côte D’Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The LAB4LAB (Learning Along Borders for Living Across Boundaries) project objective is to ease conflict by creating safe places of community education and social activity to stimulate development and interdependence between the countries. A goal easier said than done, Partners for Architecture’s role was to translate this utopian concept into a real, physical solution within six weeks time.More

High Tech Lighting Solutions for High Rise Living

Randall Whitehead Lighting — Custom adjustable picture lights by Phoenix Day Company subtly offer additional illumination for the paintings by Marianne Kolb. The box beams visually float down from the ceiling to allow indirect light for the room

As more people select high-rise living in cities across the country, they are facing the tremendous challenge of how to get lighting where they want it, when the construction is primarily concrete. Often they are given a few junction boxes from which to draw power for their lighting needs. Sometimes they don’t even have that.

For example, the dining room in this luxurious 52nd story condominium at the Millennium Tower in San Francisco had little for the lighting designer, Randall Whitehead and interior designer, Michael Merrill to work with. Even though they had ten foot ceilings there wasn’t even a junction box in the ceiling for a power source.

The two designers worked together to come up with a solution that provided both ambient light and accent light for the space. They decided on the concept of fabricating of a series of box beams. The only power source they had to work with was a power feed for motor controlled blinds located in the upper corner of one wall near the ceiling line. A soffit was created along the wall to allow power to be run seamlessly from one beam to the next. The new soffit also helped balance the boxed-in HVAC ducting on the opposite wall.More

Robert Damora- Architect and Photographer: A Life Remembered

1 knoll.jpg — Knoll Associates showroom, Madison Avenue, NY, NY. Florence Knoll, Designer, 1951; Robert Damora, Photographer, 1951

November 10, 2008

In this, the last interview Robert Damora gave before his death in March, 2009, I explore his work as an architectural photographer and learn more about his commitment to his craft. Honed by training at Yale and his unfailing attention to the minutest detail, Damora was once described by architect, Walter Gropius as, “the best photographer of architecture in this country.” Here then, is his very personal story, told by Damora himself and by those who cherished him and his remarkable work.

Clifton Monteith Creates Rustic Art Nouveau Furniture from the Heart

Michigan native and artist, Clifton Monteith, feels at home in Japan, understanding the subtle complexity and silent social consciousness that links custom and culture there. This affection is rooted in his earliest memories of a much-admired Japanese silk embroidery and a Chinese rosewood cradle in his grandparents’ home and in the exercise of his craft, which has been a life-long commitment.

(left: Clifton Monteith with a hand-crafted lantern)

“My work is not about the easiest way of working. It relates to the ancient Shinto concept of spirit being in all things – wind, water, stone, wood. I have grown to believe that consciousness is vested in our work and translates to the experience of others who participate with the work when it is done, whether I know them or not. That my work’s process is slow bothers me not as much as if it were hurried and embodied less consciousness.” – Clifton MonteithMore

Postmodern Architecture Moves Beyond Minimalism to a New Look at the Past

vitruvian man — 'Vitruvian Man', da Vinci's model for perfect geometric balance and form, cast in concrete in Yale School of Architecture, Rudolph Hall, New Haven, CT

Don’t count on the expected when considering the state of architecture today. A generation of visionaries, trained in a period when minimalism was the dominant theme in architectural design is now in the full flower of their careers and are expanding on and redefining the assumptions of their predecessors in ways that can surprise, delight and challenge the eye.

Mid-20th century America saw a dream for future prosperity being played out in corporate board rooms and on assembly floors of companies that ranked first in the world for innovation and profits. They saw their vision for future prosperity reflected in the glass and chrome buildings that rose to progressively greater heights, like faceless monoliths, in cities around the world. The purity of modernist design, heavily influenced by the German Bauhaus School of Design of the 1920s and 30s, France’s Le Corbusier and the introduction of the International Style, by American, Philip Johnson, and others in 1932, served as a perfect fit for the times.More

Oriental Rugs and ‘Green’ Design

As the movers and shakers of the handmade rug industry, the interior design trade plays a pivotal role in shaping the end consumers’ purchasing decisions. After focusing on the greenness of the handweaving process from the manufacturers’ standpoint (See “Special Green Report—Handmade Rugs—The Original Green Floor Coverings,” ARTES (Oct. 13, 2009), this article takes a hard look at what the country’s most reputed and green-attuned designers and other members of the design community are thinking. Do they view handmade rugs as an eco-friendly floor covering as compared to machine-made?

Noted New York-based interior designer Darren Henault of Darren Henault Interiors, says, “To me, the fact that handmade oriental and decorative rugs are green seems only logical and obvious.” However, for most members of the design trade, awareness of handmade rugs as being green is limited, if not virtually nonexistent. States Laura Bohn of Laura Bohn Design Associates, New York, NY whose work has been featured on CNN Style and HGTV: “I didn’t know that and never thought of it until now!” Adds Mary Douglas Drysdale of Drysdale Design Associates, Washington, DC: “As a group, the designers’ mission is to make things look good and is focused more on instant gratification which is not born out of long-term thinking.” Echoes designer Annette Stelmack of Stelmack & Associates III, Denver, CO and co-author of Residential Sustainable Interiors:1“ For [most] designers, the greenness of floor coverings is not a major preoccupation.”More