Illustrated Book Of The Week : Shop America

If you put all my favorite things into a pot, stirred them up and made them into a book. You might well get this.

Shops! America!! Mid Century Design!!! Who could ask for anything more?





Shop America is a large format collection of 'style suggestions' for shop design from the Thirties and Forties. Idealised images of dream stores from one of the most romantic eras of design in the Twentieth Century.





Everything from sporting good shops and pharmacies





to cosmetic stores and opticians





The use of colour is particularly inspiring - just look at the tones suggested for a supermarket (Much as I love Waitrose, this is far more alluring, isn't it?)





And the illustrations are incredibly stylish - even the sweetshops have a hint of 30's pulp fiction..





Others are straight out of classic film noir. I could swear that this woman is about to pull a revolver out of her purse and shoot the other chick dead. I've watched enough Joan Crawford films to know, eyebrows like that can only mean one thing...





...Trouble.

Shop America: Mid-Century Storefront Design, 1938-1950 Edited by Jim Heimann, with an essay by Steven Heller is available from Taschen Books

Aspesi Window

This cardboard Milanese street scene graced the window of the Aspesi Clothing store in the world famous Via Montenapoleone, It is wonderfully naive and hand made and I wish I had made it myself !

The Zuider Zee Museum

Last Monday on my way back from a beautiful wedding in the North of Holland, I visited this charming museum, a whole fishing village has been rebuilt on the banks of Europes' largest lake the Ijsselmeer. The lake was created in 1932 when an inland sea, the Zuiderzee, was closed by a 32 km dam, and the museum was conceived to preserve the culture and traditions of the local inhabitants.

Over the past few years the museum has started to commission contemporary dutch designers and their work is exhibited in selected houses in the village. Making a wonderful surprise when entering some of the houses and discovering a Studio Job stained glass or the retro/modern delft blue and white stencils of Hugo Kaagman (above and below)

Dotted around the village are traditionally dressed 'locals' going about their daily lives, making lunch, repairing fishing nets washing laundry, all adding to the feeling of stepping back in time .

I took these photos on my iphone hipstamatic app, which creates this delightful aged effect.

The Zuider Zee Museum

True Story

Once upon a time there was a Happy Little Blogger.

The Happy Little Blogger would sit at his computer and write happy little blogs about all the things in the world he liked. Sometimes he wrote about interesting objects, other times he wrote about inspiring places, and once in a while he wrote about ideas that he had.

One day, the Happy Little Blogger wrote a blog post about 'School Style'.

"...it's quite amazing how fascinated I am by educational style" he wrote, "I dream of modelling a room after a 1940's school gym - filled with leather mats, metal lockers and a sculptural wooden pommel-horse as a centrepiece."

Now, it just so happened that the Magical Blog Fairies were surfing the web that day, and came across the Happy Little Blogger's post. "What a happy little blog" they said to one another "Let us make his dream come true".

So, it came to pass that, about two months after he wrote that blog post, the Happy Little Blogger found himself in the gym of an old Victorian school. It was more beautiful and exciting than he could ever have imagined. He gathered all his money together and bought the gym, making him the happiest little blogger that ever there was.

The End.

Actually, that's far from the end of the story, because buying the gym was just the beginning of a massive adventure. The space is incredible - huge and stunning and full of character, but the work and renovations have been so all-consuming, I've been completely unable to blog for the last few months. So I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Magical Blog Fairies for the lack of recent attention and thank them very much for granting my wish.

It's not exactly the dark wood and leather space that I had imagined - but soaring vaulted ceilings, amazing daylight and loads of period features more than make up for it. I haven't bought that pommel-horse yet, but give me time...

Built in 1906 in East London, it's part of a classic Victorian red brick school. Originally used as a gym and assembly hall, it has functioned as an artist's studio for the past 40 years. Now I am lucky enough to be the latest occupant.

I'll be blogging the progress that I make, and sharing some of the wonders of living and working in such a special building.

Watch this space...

The Juna Mahal Palace

I am visiting this amazing palace for the second time this year, and I can't believe I didn't get round to blogging it yet. It is breath taking, 9 stories high over 700 years old in parts, and best of all no tourists, today my parents and I were there alone, it was divine.


















and to crown it all a visit to the adjacent Udai Bilas Palace hotel is a necesity

Udai Bilas

Venice Biennale 2009 : The Arsenale Location

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon in Venice, the weather was glorious, the temperature just right, perfect in fact to visit the 53^rd International Biennale of Art. I took the boat to the Gardini stop at the end of the line, but unfortunately that part of the exhibition was closed on Mondays. A kindly Italian lady informed me that the Arsenale would be open and guided me to the entrance, with the warning that I would have to walk 1.5km before arriving at the Italian pavilion.

This was my first visit to Venice’s Arsenale, and nothing prepared me for this spectacular location. The arsenale is the city's shipyard and is generally thought to date from the 12c, it covers a huge area of ancient brick warehouses and docks.

After the long walk down a narrow passage I finally arrived at the first of the warehouses. As I moved on from one space to another I began to feel an amazing synergy between many of the artworks and the incredible buildings. Parts of the buildings and landscapes were like works of art and some of the works of art seemed part of the aging architecture or gardens

more to follow !

Dalston Mill - A Local Event for Local People

The Joys of a British Summer

Computers are wonderful things. They let us discover global events and trends at the touch of a button. They allow us to communicate with each other in faster and more efficient ways. Best of all, they let strange and esoteric people publish pages and pages of photos and text on the oddest topics. There's no doubt that the digital revolution is becoming the greatest social change that we will experience in our lifetimes.

Of course, as with all good things, there's a darker side. Our ability to connect so easily with each other through a computer screen can be isolating. It becomes more convenient to text or email than actually meet or use the telephone. Facebook can provide you with thousands of 'friends' that you will never speak to or sit down with, and instead of specifically letting your friends know where you are, or how you are feeling, you can use 'twitter' to broadcast it to the entire world. Virtual reality might be filled with mails and friends and tweets and twitters, but on a human level it can be a very lonely place. 

Equally, the vast amount of instant information available to us can have a negative effect. When millions of people around the world can access every piece of news from any corner of the planet simultaneously, what happens? Celebrity becomes all the more powerful. Commerce has no regional barriers. Our highly globalised world becomes even more homogeneous. 

However, as a certain Mr Einstein once said 'Every action must have a equal and opposite reaction". This huge shift in society is provoking a new trend - in an enormous response to the power of the internet, people are becoming more and more interested in the simple pleasures of local community life.

Two recent events on the streets of Dalston have illustrated this perfectly. Firstly, our street took part in the national 'Big Lunch' event, which encouraged neighborhoods throughout the country to throw street parties and get to know one another.

British people (and Londoners in particular), do not generally socialise with their neighbours. Neighbours are the people that you nod stiffly to in the street and never make eye contact with. It's a national tradition. So for streets throughout the country to be filled with neighbours actually chatting with each other, and sharing food and drink - well, it was somewhat revolutionary. Perhaps a little awkward at first (because, lets face it, these are people who we have been politely ignoring for many years), but altogether a heart warming and pleasant experience.

Hot on the heels of this celebration, and just down the road, was the installation of the Dalston Mill. the Mill was a temporary art project, that took over a disused railway line and turned it into a hub for local events. A small corn field was installed (providing a very interesting contrast with the urban surroundings), a working mill was built and a bakery allowed the bread to be baked on site. It was all very English, and quirky and 'Hackney' in spirit.

Local businesses took part in a scheme to allow the bread to be used as currency, and workshops and performances were held promoting local talent. When we visited, the whole place was buzzing with people joyously learning how to decorate cakes.

Not only was this a celebration of Dalston's native culture, it looked good too. EXYZT, the experimental architectural collective who had created the site, did a great job of integrating both rustic and industrial elements into the scheme.

 

The internet may put the world at our doorsteps, but, paradoxically it's also allowing us to rediscover what is just beyond our front doors. With events celebrating local life, it's great to discover the delights of keeping things close to home .

It's Just a Facade

One of the great things about living in a city as ancient and diverse as London is that you can discover the most magnificent sights in the most obscure places. And sometimes, in the least obscure.

This incredible installation is right in the middle of town - no more than five minutes from Tottenham Court Road - but you would never know it was there if you didn't stumble across it. It's all that remains of the radium wing of the Middlesex Hospital - a magnificent Victorian building that once housed the pioneers of cancer research.

I love the way that the tough industrial geometry of the brackets contrast with the decorative elements of the facade.  The combination is so sculptural, that it's hard to imagine that it was created purely as a practical solution to preserve what is left of a listed building. Even if it's not intentionally aesthetic, the structure reminds me of the work of artists as diverse as Rachel Whiteread and Christo. An extremely beautiful combination of the past and the present.

Curtains Beautiful

I started writing this post with the sentence: "I've always loved Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and furniture" - and then I realised what a redundant statement that was. Of course I love Lloyd-Wright, everyone loves Lloyd-Wright. Without him, our whole understanding of design and decoration would be completely different. It's like saying you love Einstein's theories, or Shakespeare's plays - a no-brainer.

I had no idea that along with revolutionising architecture, designing classic furniture, and basically redefining our whole concept of modern interiors, Lloyd-Wright also designed textiles. I came across these amazing curtains of his at Mark McDonald in Hudson. Designed in the mid-fifties for F.Schumacher, they're like a textile version of his stained glass windows, and incredibly chic. Possibly the ultimate modernist curtains - it's amazing that they've never been re-issued.

Barn in the USA

I always admire people with a strong personal aesthetic. Whether someone loves 60's mod style or classical simplicity - if they truly get it right, it's always a pleasure to behold.

Of all my friends, I think that Christopher Griffith has the most all-encompassing visual point of view. As a photographer he has a very specific 'eye' - his work pares down everything he shoots to the most powerful graphic, textural shapes - almost to a point of abstraction. This sensibility can be seen in every part of his life. He dresses almost exclusively in black, white and grey. He decorates his home in monochromatic tones, using simple punchy shapes and surface texture to add interest. Everything he surrounds himself with looks like something out of a signature "Christopher Griffith" photograph.

Tempering the hard edges of Christopher's style is his girlfriend's equally refined vision. Rebecca O'Donnell is an amazingly talented art director, whose taste is similarly minimal - but whose love of modernism and simplicity helps to 'warm up' their shared spaces and add a slightly softer, more human touch. She's also a fabulous cook, who manages to even make her food look as beautiful as it tastes (that's the mark of a true art director, isn't it? When even the pies look like something out of a photoshoot)

So, when I was invited to visit their newly built barn in Upstate New York - I pretty much knew what to expect. Graphic lines, beautiful furniture, great food - blah blah blah. Even so, I was extremely impressed.

The space itself is incredible, with insanely high ceilings and the largest living room I think I've ever seen. The vertical and horizontal lines of the exposed beams serve to emphasise the scale of the place, and add the prerequisite graphic touch. Decoration is minimal, but specific - filled with pieces that manage to be both rugged and romantic at the same time.

Most importantly, the way that the barn utilises the natural light is extraordinary. The living rooms four huge windows allow the light to flood in from dawn to dusk, while every corner of the space is softly lit by additional windows. And the light that they benefit from is breathtaking. As you can see from this post's opening picture, the evening light is positively cinematic in its beauty.

As a demonstration of Christopher and Bec's particular aesthetics - the barn is a triumph. A brilliantly realised statement about who they are and what they find beautiful. One of the most inspiring spaces I've been into in many years.

See what I mean about the light? Crazy!