Interior Design

Philadelphia Museum of Art with Neo-Modern Vision of Multi-Faceted Architect

Image 7 Katya — The 'Z'-Chair, a Zaha Hadid design, on view at PMA

On view through spring, 2012, the Philadelphia Museum of Art features a unique exhibition, Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion. This show includes furniture and design objects in a space entirely transformed by the prominent female architect. The fluid, site-specific installation is the first of its kind in the United States, assembled by a team of designers from Hadid Architects. The show reflects Hadid’s seamless work methods, as well as her technological breakthroughs in architecture and design. artes fine arts magazineMore

Wilmington, Delaware’s Concerned Community Revitalizes Architectural Landmark

Classical limestone bank buildings line the streets of downtown Wilmington, Delaware; facades that suggest prosperity and life. But until recently, the streetlights shining vigilantly at night exposed nothing but emptiness. And, although Wilmington became a national financial center for the credit card industry – since the Financial Center Development Act of 1981 removed the legal cap on interest rates that banks charge customers – at the receiving end, its population had a median household income of $35,000 in the 2000 census. fine arts magazineMore

Versailles, Home of the Sun King, Hosts Contemporary Art of Murakami

murakami versailles artes fine arts magazine — Takashi MURAKAMI, Oval Buddha Silver (2008) Salon De L’Abondance, Château de Versailles, 18.6 x 10.5 x 10.2’, photo:Cedric Delsaux, ©2007-2010 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Once again the battle between preserving classical French culture from the ugly claws of globalization has been making headlines in France. This time around it is provocateur-artist Takashi Murakami’s, Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol, recent exhibition of comic-based manga and anime-inspired paintings, sculptures, one rug and a film, at the Château Versailles and its gardens (September 14–December 12, 2010), that raised the hackles of Prince Sixte-Henri de Bourbon-Parme, a descendent of the Louis XIV, as well as the Coordination de la Défense de Versailles, an organization specifically formed to prevent artist, Jeff Koons from exhibiting at the palace in 2008. Aimed at giving Koons and his giant metal dog the boot, a lawsuit initiated by the prince’s nephew, was dismissed by the court.

Condemning Murakami’s “veritable ‘murder’ of our heritage, our artistic identity, and our most sacred culture”, de Bourbon-Parme claims that the artist’s work disrespects the glory of Versailles. “There are puppets in that exhibition that are frankly grotesque. These works undermine the unity-of-style of the museum.” According to the CDV it also, “violates the harmony of the palace itself which is a symbol of French history and culture.” fine arts magazineMore

Norwegian Architects, Jensen & Skodvin Create Woodland Escape with Minimal Environmental Impact

ARTES: This is such an unusual structure, projecting so much of the natural beauty of its surroundings, that it attracted my attention at a recent Scandinavia House exhibition in New York. I just had to contact you. Tell me a bit about the inspiration for the Juvet Landscape Hotel.

J&S: The Juvet Landscape Hotel is located at Valldal, near the town of Åndalsnes in north-western Norway. Passing tourists are attracted by a spectacular waterfall, in a deep gorge near the road in Gudbrandsjuvet. The client, Knut Slinning, is a local resident. The idea emerged as an opportunity to exploit breathtaking scenery with minimal intervention, allowing locations which would otherwise be prohibited for reasons of conservation. fine arts magazineMore

Newport, Rhode Island’s Historic Vanderbilt Hall and Vernon Court Share Passion for Fine Art

fine arts magazine — Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (circ.1910)

This is a tale of two historic homes in a beautiful seaside, New England town, and of how visionary zeal and coincidence braided history, friendship and a passion for things beautiful together in a most unusual way…

On May 1, 1915 Alfred Vanderbilt boarded the Lusitania bound for Liverpool as a first class passenger. It was a business trip, and he traveled with only his valet, leaving his family at home in New York. On May 7th, off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, the German submarine, U-20, torpedoed the ship, triggering a secondary explosion, sinking the giant ocean liner within eighteen minutes. Vanderbilt and his valet, Ronald Denyer, helped others into lifeboats, and then Vanderbilt gave his own lifejacket to save a female passenger, even tying it onto her himself, since she was holding an infant child in her arms. His selfless actions cost him, and those of 1197 other passengers, their lives. Fine Arts MagazineMore

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

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

New York’s, William Green & Assoc., Architects, Create a West Coast Gem

What’s going on?

The dismaying dearth of intellectual rigor in our popular culture has been parried with an overly- zealous esotericism among the architectural elite. This clique of influential architects has been given a much louder voice by their precocious benefactors than befits their numbers and yet their stamp upon the contemporary architectural landscape has been profound.Fine Arts MagazineMore

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