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 magazine

Hadid's Opera House, Guangzhou, China (2010)

Born in Bagdad, Iraq, Hadid is known worldwide for her visionary architecture. She is responsible for many breakthroughs in her field, and is the first woman recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She is the founder of London-based Zaha Hadid Architects, and has numerous projects completed around the world, most recently including MAXXI: National Museum of XXI Century in Rome (2009), Guangzhaou Opera House in China (2010), and Olympic Aquatics Centre in London (2011). She is now based in London and works internationally in the fields of urbanism, architecture and design.

Mesa Tables, Design by Zaha Hadid

The museum gallery housing the exhibition, in the Perelman building, is completely transformed. The installation greets the viewer with sleek, attention-grabbing furniture and functional objects, such as the Z-Chair, Vortexx Chandeliers and the Mesa Table. To the left, there is a rippling wall—a temporary structure built on site. This undulating form also serves as a shelving unit for Hadid-designed objects, including limited-edition footwear, jewelry and silverware. The silver lines painted on the floor echo the shadows made by the furniture, creating a seamless visual composition.

Lighting plays an important role in this exhibition. The metallic chairs and tables reflect the natural light casted from the window, evolving and morphing as they are viewed from different angle. The functional objects on the shelving unit, including Flatware, Crevasse Vases and other items seem to flash from the light cast through a small opening in the shelves. The Vortexx Chandeliers, continuously changing hues with the use of high-intensity, light emitting diodes LED, cast an ephemeral glow on the surrounding objects and walls.

Flatware, by Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid makes it a goal to integrate her designs to their environment. In this exhibition silver lines painted on the floor fuse the shadows to the objects, at times creating a 3-dimensional effect. The fluidity in her work stems from her creative process. According to curator Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger, Hadid works on her designs simultaneously, having several computer screens open at a time with various objects and architectural images, resulting the work that is interrelated and flowing. Design similarities can be seen throughout both her architectural and object designs.

Most objects in the exhibition are made from steel, aluminum, and polyurethane, apart from the sofa, which is upholstered with metallic fabric. Despite the hard materials, the objects are surprisingly organic. They walk the line between fine art and product design, and are often viewed as functional sculptures. Hadid sells her objects as both art and useable products.

Hadid's Z-Car I, a Hydrogen-powered, 3-wheel prototype

Some of the highlights of this exhibition are the mini-sculptural jewelry pieces—Celeste Necklace and Cuff and Glace Collection Jewelry—which are both made with Swarowski Crystals. Like most of the objects in the show, the unusual jewelry shapes elevate them beyond mere utility, to become works of art. Another unexpected design offering by Hadid, is the hydrogen-powered, three-wheel vehicle, Z-Car I prototype. It is presented outside the immediate gallery area, gracing the hallway of the Perelman building with its aerodynamically sleek, quirky presence. As if to leave no part of our lives unattended to, the exhibit also features futuristic Hadid footwear designs, produced in conjunction with clothing brand Lacoste.

Not only does this show offer an exclusive look into the future, with spectacular Hadid designs, the museum also honored the architect with a Design of Excellence Award on November 19, 2011. Collab, a volunteer committee specializing in design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be presenting this award to Hadid, with her multi-faceted contributions in the fields of design, architecture and urbanism. The architect used the award event as an opportunity to share her views on design with the audience.

By Ekaterina Popova, Contributing Writer

Visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art at: www.philamuseum.org

See more of Zaha Hadid’s design concepts at: www.zaha-hadid.com

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Closing out the business day, the city’s workers would file out to swarm I-95, or head for the Amtrak station or DART stop, and report in again the next day. Wilmington was another city whose ebb and flow ran in twelve hour tides. Little by little, restaurants and bars have begun to reclaim the shoreline that is the downtown. And now, World Café Live has opened at the renovated Queen Theater on North Market Street, delivering world class music to these revitalized corridors.

One tip-off that Wilmington was destined to become a musical epicenter is the musicians who have lived below the radar here. Resident, David Bromberg performed resoundingly at the Light up the Queen Foundation benefit in 2010, while New Orleans native Trombone Shorty played outrageous saxophone on the roof of the nearby Shop Rite! The Peoples’ Festival held annually on the riverfront honors one time Wilmington resident Bob Marley. But nothing exactly prepares you for the full on architectural overhaul at the Queen Theater or the radiance of its performance stage. Once a repository for fetid rain water falling through its roof, and an aromatic blend of rubble, pigeon droppings and mold below, this thoughtful renovation has brilliantly revived the stylized ceiling medallions, three ten-by-ten foot frescoed murals, and ornately-gilded surrounds beside the organ pipes. The restoration process has also unearthed a fiercely burning, but dormant underground love from the Wilmington community.

Originally conceived in 1789 as the Indian Queen Hotel, and then operated as the luxurious Clayton House, the Queen Theater morphed into a movie palace in 1916. By April 1959, it shuttered its once-beloved doors, following a showing of House on Haunted Hill perhaps presciently, and remained dark for the next five decades. Enter Hal Real and his Real Entertainment Group, a dynamic consortium of music club developers who collaborated with WXPN radio station on its maiden enterprise, World Café Live, in Philadelphia. Seeing the possibilities with imperturbability required Wilmington based real estate developers Buccini/Pollin Group and city officials to join the initiative to restore the Queen Theater. With straight faces, a Spring 2011 opening date was announced in October of 2009 on the 45,000 square foot project.

The finished building comprises great paradox; predictably dramatic spaces – the proscenium stage – combined with textured balcony seating and open plan for approximately 900 persons. The acoustics, both structural and mechanically-enhanced, are precise, clear, yet luminous and effective in a variety of ranges. Witness the intense complexity of opening act, Sonny Landreth, on April 1, followed by the intimate and personal renditions of Ingrid Michaelson’s sold-out performance.

The Queen serves all.

Telescoping from the spectacular to the specific is also the hallmark of its interior configurations. Generous spaces create a sensory time sequence that satisfies both a taste for imposing public domains and an appreciation for surface detail. Many of the oldest paint layers have been conserved in their naturally eroding state and preserved into collage like patterns. The bars are eco-friendly strokes of genius. Reclaimed from other, funky locations, they highlight the knots of pine or diagonal herringbone one expects to find in a Pocono lodge, or a shack at the beach. This familiarity of time-worn material and the surprise casualness of natural wood in a beaux arts environment is a welcoming and warming touch. In this building of somewhat grand volume, one makes small discoveries; ancient movie projectors found with their film reels still in place, a whiplash of time and space.

One might desire a parallel alternative to the rich vibrancy of the stage: Upstairs Live now serves lunch, happy hour and dinner. Or, take a break to the smaller downstairs bar, pop into the palladium windowed Olympia Room – sometimes used for private parties – or the witty gift shop, and you will have changed the gestalt completely and primed yourself for the dance floor. The Queen’s relationship to the street outside is direct and harmonious, if what you crave is simply air. Another passerby may spontaneously stop in, provided the evening’s musical act has not already had its tickets swallowed up. Reservations are recommended.

Wilmington’s many banks now advertise in the sponsor pages of the Queen Theater’s program. They too understand the importance of continuity and re-invention. Projecting civic pride to the Light up the Queen Foundation – the ongoing non-profit that brings talent, illustriousness, and history to their home base – makes banks seem almost human again. A crowd gathers on the sidewalk outside the Queen’s doors at night. For Wilmington, whose motto is A Place to Be Somebody, those words may finally ring true.

By Diane Dewey, Contributing Writer

World Café Life at:

The Queen Theater

500 North Market Street

Wilmington, DE 19801

Tel: 302 994 1400

www.queen.worldcafelive.com

www.lightupthequeen.org

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 magazine

Takashi Murakami at Versailles (2010), photo:Kleinefenn

Various Murakami’s quotes!…“When someone scores a goal, someone is going to be unhappy.” “I am the Cheshire Cat who greets Alice in Wonderland with his devilish grin, and chatters on as she wanders around the chateau.” “This is a face-off between the baroque and postwar Japan,”and, “I hope it will create in visitors a sort of shock, an aesthetic feeling.”

On Murakami’s side, as well as hordes of Euro-spending tourists visiting Versailles each year – as the third most popular tourist spot in France – are the so-called powers behind the throne. According to Jean-Jacques Aillagon—former culture minister and the current palace museum director— who stated it is his duty to open the palace to contemporary artistic creations of our times, “the coexistence of Murakami and Versailles makes perfect sense.” The Hall of Mirrors is a kind of manga, a comic strip for glory of the king’s reign, he told one interviewer.

As for Laurent Brunner, who chooses the artists to exhibit at Versailles – and who toured me through the exhibition – his “nine year old son is not interested in Veronese, but he does relate to Murakami’s work.” And, says Laurent Le Bon, director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz and curator of the exhibition, “All I really want to do is make a dialogue between Murakami and Versailles.”

T. Murakami, Miss KO² (1997) oil, acrylic, fiberglass and iron, 6.16’ x 2.08’ x 2.9’, Photo: Edward Rubin ©Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Though Murakami’s exhibition was not derailed, the ‘powers that be’ did capitulate ever so slightly. Not on view, as they were deemed too ‘explosive’ to show, were Murakami’s more titillating – some say pornographic – larger than life “body fluid” sculptures. Missing in action was My Lonesome Cowboy (1998), featuring a masturbating young man whose ejaculation, exploding from a large penis, floats lasso-style overhead. Also missing was Hiropon (1997), in which a young woman in bikini top and nothing below is squeezing her oversized breasts and nipples, while a frothy stream of milk swirls around her like a jump rope.

The nearest we get to the subject of sex at Versailles is six-foot tall Miss Ko² (1997), a young, short-skirted, stiletto-heeled, perky-breasted Barbie doll blond. Awkwardly situated in a corner of the Salon De La Guerre, Miss Ko² is dressed as a waitress, a la Hooters—like servers at Anna Miller’s, a popular restaurant chain in Tokyo.

T. Murakami, Flower Matango (2001-06), fiberglass, iron, oil paint and acrylic, 10.3 x 6.7 x 8.6’, Hall of Mirrors, Versailles. photo:Cedric Delsaux ©2001-2006 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Whether Murakami succeeded in creating a vibrant, meaningful dialogue is a matter of opinion and all of France seems to have has weighed in! For me, who is of the mind that Marie Antoinette got a bum deal, Murakami’s invasion of the king and queen’s royal chambers, is little more than sideshow entertainment – read, diversion – for youngsters, as well as culture-vulture tourists who know little more than its former occupants lost their heads. It does offer a respite, as well distraction, from mere historical consideration, or for that matter, from any serious thinking. Of course, those who stand to gain the most from the caché of Murakami’s Versailles outing, are the galleries representing him, museums showing him, those collecting his work, and of course the artist, whose larger works – his Cowboy’was auctioned in 2008, at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction, for $15,161,000 – have been known to bring in millions.

This said, Murakami, like Jeff Koons, another ‘fast food’ mega-millionaire, art manufacturing-entrepreneur who rarely applies his hand to his own work – a large staff in New York and Japan does his bidding – does have a gift for supplying the curious masses with kitschy, cartoon based, entertainment pieces. Two, or maybe three tops, of the 22 works on view at Versailles, manage to register high on my Richter scale of visual enjoyment, craft and placement; the latter, due to the already-spectacular Baroque nature of Versailles itself, being of utmost importance. The remaining works are occasionally ironic, mildly impertinent, and cutesy-poo in their insistence, coming across as more, “Toys ‘R’ Us” display, than an actual work of art. Here the peerless neutering powers of the Sun King’s palace all but remove Murakami’s vitals.

T. Murakami,The Emperor’s New Clothes (2005), fiberglass, resin, iron, wood, fabrics, oil paint, acrylic and lacquer, 6.2 x 3.1 x 1.5’, © Coronation Room, Versailles. photo:Cedric Delsaux

A good example of such neutering is Flower Mantango (2001-2006), the artist’s oversized, tendril-sprouting, double-globed sculpture covered with grinning flowers in a thousand eye-popping colors. Placed at the entrance of the spectacular Hall of Mirrors—all seventeen huge mirrored arches reflecting seventeen equally-impressive arcade windows overlooking the palace gardens— Mantango is reduced to an annoying accessory to the fact; the fact being that you are standing in the jewel of one of the world’s most awe-inspiring palaces and nothing else really matters. The artist’s display of Superflat Flowers (2010) in the Salon de la Paix fares no better.

The Emperor’s New Clothes (2005), a nod to Hans Christian Anderson’s story, adds the ultimate ironic touch—perhaps serving as a statement about the entire exhibition. Murakami places a diminutive, large-headed, wide-eyed, comedic-looking king in the Coronation Room, a room filled with paintings celebrating the glories of Napoleon Bonaparte. This juxtaposition raises myriad thoughts, from humorous, to insulting, to calculatingly subversive, no doubt reflecting the artist’s intention.

When Murakami’s efforts hit the bull’s eye, it’s as if Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV, the palace’s most notorious occupants, specifically commissioned the work of art, for not only does it fit perfectly within its respective space—be it in the palace or gardens—but, it appears inseparable from its surroundings.

T. Murakami, Tongari-Kun (2003-04) fiberglass, steel, and oil, acrylic, urethane paint, 22.96 x11.48’ ©. Salon D'Hercule, Versailles. Photo: Edward Rubin

Tongari-Kun (2003-2004), the crowning glory if the exhibition, is Murakami at his most inventive and luxurious best. The 23- foot Baroque-style sculpture is a colorful fusion of surrealism, Art Nouveau and a hint of Japanese manga, featuring a giant-headed, fiberglass and steel Buddha, with numerous arms gracing its sides. Buddha sits on a frog, which in turn, is resting on a lotus flower. Smack-dab in the center of the ornate Salon D’Hercule, beneath a ceiling painting, Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Le Moyne, and surrounded by a pair of Veroneses, this imposing Buddha is the exhibition’s indoor show-stopper. Equally impressive is Murakami’s large, stately, richly-detailed sterling silver Oval Buddha Silver (2008), situated in the Salon De L’Abondance, beneath the portrait of Louis XV, great-grandson of Louis XIV. As dramatic, is his bronze and gold-leafed Oval Buddha (2007-2010), overlooking the palace’s extensive gardens. It is here, among the ‘big three’ that Murakami, if only during the run of his exhibition, gets to rule.

By Edward Rubin, Contributing Writrer

Edward Rubin is a critic who writes about art, culture and entertainment. Although based in New York City, he travels frequently to cover international events.

Editor’s notes: Here is a link to Jerry Sals, from New York Magazine, discussing the Murakami exhibition when it showed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY.  In it, he discusses some of the pieces that were excluded from the Versailles event, but discussed by Ed Rubin in the article above.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxmMxi-lelg

A

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 magazine

ARTES: How did the client, Knut Slinning, and your firm come to work together?

J&S: The client, Knut Slinning, comes from the coastal town Ålesund, about 100 km west of Gudbrandsjuvet. He is a property developer. He has owned a cottage in Gudbrandsjuvet since late 1980′s. He listened to our first presentation of ideas for the site (part of a national tourist road project Gudbrandsjuvet viewing platform, http://www.jsa.no/galleries_index_2.html) where we, amongst other things, proposed a ‘landscape hotel’. This idea originally came from another project we did, in the Aurland valley further south, in the Sognefjord, but it is still not realized there. About two years after our presentation in Gudbrandsjuvet, Knut Slinning bought a farm with a river, close to the waterfalls in Gudbrandsjuvet, and he asked us to help him realize the landscape hotel idea. We did the zoning plan (he is allowed to build 28 rooms on his property) and have now realized the first seven rooms. A small spa will be completed this summer as well, very close to the river, with one wall just in glass in each of the saunas, relax rooms and massage rooms.

ARTES: Of course, the green theme is on everyone’s mind right now, but what inspired you for this particular design?

J&S: We wanted to create rooms that does not have the conventional borders (the walls), but which offer an experience that is as large as the landscape—a mountainous gorge three-to-four miles wide in this case. To create this, we worked a lot with the windows so that as much as possible of the “bordering” or “enclosing” effect that a window and its framing usually gives were eliminated, or made as small as possible. This is intended to give an effect of being in a large and grand landscape (not merely looking at it), but maintaining absolutely private, while also being protected and warm.

Instead of the conventional hotel, with guest rooms stacked together in one large building, the Landscape Hotel distributes the rooms throughout the terrain as small individual houses. Every house has one or two walls that are entirely built in glass, making the experience of being in the space truly breathtaking. Through careful orientation, every room gets its own exclusive view of a beautiful and unique piece of the landscape, always changing with the season, the weather, and the time of day. No room looks out at another, so the rooms offer the ultimate in privacy, even though curtains are not used.

At the moment there are seven units completed, but with the possibility of adding 21 additional, according to the master plan. All the rooms have slightly differing designs, as a result of local topographical needs and vegetation, as well as to maximize the requirements for privacy and the best possible views. Construction was carefully planned to eliminate the necessity of blasting of rock or altering the terrain in any way. In this way, the rooms become the least invasive addition to the existing topography.

ARTES: Each room seems to have its own character. Why are the rooms laid out differently?

J&S: We did not want to use dynamite, we wanted a project that could be removed without leaving scars in the landscape, and therefore we regarded the houses as guests on the site. Basically we discussed a lot what each single room should contain. All the rooms are slightly different because of the typography and conditions on each plot, but with same basic services.

ARTES: The construction and interior design considerations must have been a challenge, given the rough terrain and harsh winter conditions. How did you solve those problems?

J&S: The units are over-engineered for harsh winter conditions, built with massive spruce construction (85mm in the walls, 120mm in the roof and the floor), as a finished reveal on the interior (roof and walls). On the outside there is pine panel, treated with iron vitriol, which creates a chemical process on the surface of the wood that resembles ageing; the wood turns grey in a couple of months because of a reaction with the daylight.

The modular units are intended for summer occupancy only. Each building rests on a set of 40mm massive steel rods drilled into the rock, with existing topography and vegetation left largely untouched. The glass walls are set against slim frames of wood, locked with standard steel profiles, using stepped edges to extend the exterior layer of the main glass surfaces all the way to the corners.

The interiors are treated with transparent oil with black pigments, so that reflections from the inner surface of the glass wall are minimized. Shelves, benches and a small table are all built by the same massive wooden elements to maintain a certain degree of deliberate monotony, serving as a visual counterpoint to the complex nature views outside and to keep the visual presence of the interior at a minimum.

ARTES: Tel me a bit more about J&S’s commitment to green design and how you optimized those guidelines in this project?

J&S: Today’s concern for sustainability in architecture focuses almost exclusively on reduced energy consumption in production and operation. At Jensen and Slodvin, we think that conservation of topography is another aspect of sustainability deserving of attention. Standard building procedure requires the general destruction of the site to accommodate foundations and infrastructure before building can commence. Conserving the site is a way to respect the fact that nature precedes and succeeds man. Also, dutiful observation of existing topography produces a visual ‘reading’, where the geometry of the intervention highlights the irregularities of the natural site, thus explaining both itself and its context in a more powerful way. In this way, a sustainable connection is established between structure and site.

The hotel had a planned opening for summer, 2009. A small spa is being built very close to the river, with two saunas and a massage room. It is inserted into the ground, but with glass walls facing the view of the river and the mountains.

ARTES: Thank you for your time. The photographs themselves were breath-taking. I hope I can get to see the finished project someday soon.

Client: Knut Slinning; Project Architects JSA: Jan Olav Jensen (pl), Børre Skodvin, Torunn Golberg, Helge Lunder, Torstein Koch, Thomas Knigge; Landscape Architect: Jensen & Skodvin; Static Consultant: Siv. Ing. Finn Erik Nilsen; Year Planned: 2004 – 2009; Year Built: 2007 – 2009; Status: Under realization;  Area: 800m2; Cost: 2 Million Euro

All photographs courtesy of Jensen & Skodvin Architects. For more information, see: The Juvet Landscape Hotel website at: www.juvet.com

or contact Jensen & Skodvin at: www.jsa.no

(Jensen & Skodvin Arkitektkontor AS, Sinsenveien 4D, 0572 Oslo, Norway)

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 Magazine

WW I recruiting poster, following the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, which killed Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt’s fate was ironic, as three years earlier he had made a last minute decision not to return to the United States…on the Titanic.

Thus, ended the life and colorful saga of one of America’s wealthiest men. He was of a generation of Americans who rose attained power and prestige, born of family legacy. The privileged class at the end of the 19th century had made their money in industry: steel, oil, railroads and manufacturing. And many of these families fled the crush of New York City for the fresh ocean breezes and genteel lifestyle of in Newport, Rhode Island. There, they planned and constructed great stone, seaside fin-de-siècle ‘cottages’; elaborate and massive homes in the classical European style, still standing today, emblematic of an era in American history, sometimes called the Gilded Age.

Vanderbilt Hall, Newport, RI, built be Vanderbilt for his mistress in 1909

In 1909, when Alfred Vanderbilt was still very much part of the Newport scene, with his family’s homes, The Breakers and Marble House, on prominent bluffs overlooking the Atlantic, fate dramatically altered the course of his life. A chance encounter in Central Park with a beautiful woman would provide Newport with an architectural treasure, standing today in a restored setting—the vision of yet another wealthy businessman—this time in 21st century style. Vanderbilt Hall, in the heart of Newport, was originally erected by Alfred for Agnes O’Brien Ruiz, wife of the Cuban attaché, who became his mistress after one day managing to bring her unruly horse under control in the city’s park. This fervent affair drew the wrath and indignation of the Vanderbilt family and it soon came to an end. Tragically, Ruiz was disowned by her husband and committed suicide a few years later.

Over the decades, Vanderbilt Hall has found many uses, principally as a hotel. But time and neglect took their toll on the building and much of its inherent charm was lost to expedience. Then, in 2007, the property was purchased by Peter de Savary, an English businessman with global property holdings and a vision for what Vanderbilt Hall might once again become.

Vernon Court, Newport, RI, home of the National Museum of American Illustration

Just as the Alfred Vanderbilt saga played out, another wealthy individual had taken up residence at nearby, Vernon Court, on prestigious Bellevue Avenue. Constructed in 1898 by architects, Carrère and Hastings (NY Public Library, U.S. House and Senate Office Building, Flagler Museum, Frick Museum), in the style of an 18th century French country chateau, Vernon Court served as a summer cottage for the young widow of wealthy businessman, Richard A. Gambrill. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, inspired by those of Henry VIII for his ill-fated queen, Anne Boleyn, and adjacent to Stoneacre, a park conceived by Frederick Law Olmstead (New York’s Central Park, Boston’s ‘Emerald Necklace’), it was a showpiece in many ways. It remained occupied by descendants of the family until 1956 and filled many uses over the decades since, until purchased in 1998 by Laurence and Judy Cutler, founders of the National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI).

It is here that the story of two historic properties and the divergent objectives of their two owners intersect.

Englishman, Peter de Savary is known internationally as a businessman, luxury hospitality property developer and a 1983 America’s Cup competitor for Britain. He is also an avid art collector. Various homes throughout the world house hundreds of his period works from Old Masters to the Romantic Era. It was not until he decided to undertake the renovation of the then-closed Vanderbilt Hall property in 2008 that he contacted New York City art dealer and 20th century American illustration art expert, Judy Cutler. They had met before, in 1998, when the Cutler’s purchased the property that was to become their museum from its current owner, Peter de Savary, befriending one another in the course of the transaction. Her art gallery was, as they had discovered, directly across the street from de Savary’s New York City apartment!

Vanderbilt Hall, now a luxury masion hotel and spa, owned by Peter de Savary

De Savary’s vision for Vanderbilt Hall, which he was then converting into an exclusive, membership-based resort hotel, was to capture a certain feel—of optimism and good times, of hope and a sense of home. With just 33 suites, it would make a glittering statement about a time long-past, when Newport thrived as a destination for the rich and very rich, and America enjoyed a period of prosperity. The ‘Roaring ‘20s’ were called the Jazz Age, the Age of Intolerance, and the Age of Wonderful Nonsense. But, under any moniker, the era embodied the beginning of modern America. Numerous Americans felt buoyed up following World War I (1914-18). The period of a deadly worldwide influenza epidemic (1918) had also abated. The new decade would be a time of change for everyone —only to be brought to an abrupt end by the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great depression that followed.

But, the spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of optimism associated with modernity—and a break with tradition. Everything seemed possible through modern technology. New inventions, especially automobiles, moving pictures and radio, proliferated, bringing ‘modern times’ to a many Americans. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in reaction to the mood that gripped the country during the ‘war to end all wars’. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Great Gatsby, captured the tenor of the times best when he wrote:

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning– So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” - The Great Gatsby, Ch. 9

Howard Chandler Christy, Stephen Foster Composing, ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’, originally painted as a 3-part panel.

Peter de Savary wanted to capture Fitzgerald’s mood of unbridled optimism when it came time to install art at Vanderbilt Hall. For this, he contacted Judy Cutler to learn more about how early 20th century illustration art might help set that very mood. Collabortating as a team, each room, from the 24-karat gold leaf dining room, to the area surrounding the many restored, working fireplaces, to the most intimate corner of the property, was hung with authentic, rare and strikingly dramatic examples of illustration art for a period-appropriate touch of elegance.

John Lagatta, The Bather (circ. 1935)

The artistic centerpiece near the lobby is a three-panel screen, by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), now hung like a painting. It is densely embellished, in a modern variation of Rococo styling, titled, Stephen Foster Composing, ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’. In it, the alluring young woman of the song’s title languishes on a sofa, gazing directly at the viewer, while among the many naked figures, Christy’s mistress dances on the far left. It is spicy and suggestive—much less saccharine than hasty perusal would suggest. Vanderbilt Hall is filled to overflowing with brilliantly-colored, familiar works like this and those by other noted illustration artists, including Pruett Carter, William Soare, Earl Steffa Moran, Julian De Miskey, Earl Bergey and Elbert McGran Jackson. If these artists’ names are unfamiliar to aficionados, it should be noted that they worked largely for the booming magazine and advertising trades in the 1920s and’30s. Their images graced the covers of such cultural icons as Vogue, Colliers, The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, American Weekly Magazine and the New York Herald Tribune Sunday Supplement. Deliberately evocative and sexually suggestive in ways that would never do today, these skillfully-executed works conjure a time that we would like to believe was simpler and social issues were more easily navigated.

Rico Tomaso, Center of Attention (1934)

By far, my favorite pieces in the Vanderbilt Hall Collection include one hung in the breakfast café by John Lagatta entitled, Bather (circ. 1935). For anyone who has not viewed illustration art ‘up close and personal’, the lessons that this painting teach are important. First, the technical merits of the work, including pronounced and skillful brushwork, image composition and color layering that would be the envy of any artist; the sentimental theme, while contrived, conveys a specific, unstated tension between the two figures and a charming period-specific flavor that gains in aesthetic appeal over time; and lastly, the use of light to dramatize the interaction and heighten the illusion of depth and surface planes with merely a few well-chosen brush strokes are just short of masterful.

Another favorite hangs in the dining room and it just might be everyone’s favorite work. It is a sultry portrait of a 20’s socialite, by Rico Tomaso, titled, Center of Attention. She sits on a bar stool, surrounded by men, draped in silk and gazing over her shoulder at something or someone of interest in the distance. Seductive, childlike, sophisticated, bored, calculating, manipulative, naive, unnaturally beautiful are all terms that come to mind, simultaneously, when considering this painting. A 20’s version of Paris Hilton, this mystery woman is clearly in command of the scene. Tomaso’s subtle portrayal of this inscrutable, physically-appealing individual, who sits idly by, as the men surround her competing for attention, is all captured in this small, but elegant painting.

The works were, of course, all purchased by Peter de Savary from Judy Cutler’s, American Illustrators Gallery, in New York City . For anyone interested in an expanded, dramatically-more comprehensive tour of illustration art, the Cutler’s, National Museum of American Illustration, is a short distance away at Vernon Court.

Charles Dana Gibson, The Market Basket (circ. 1900)

A suitably elegant setting, the mansion currently houses the museum’s extensive collection of American illustration; the Gilded Age in architecture is contemporaneous with the “Golden Age of American Illustration”, and is a theme on which the collection focuses. Over a period of more than forty years, the Cutler’s collection has grown to become remarkably comprehensive. Anchoring the collection are some of the iconic drawings of Charles Dana Gibson (the Gibson Girls), paintings by Howard Pyle, the father of illustration art, his students, Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth and J.C. Leyendecker , who in turn influenced many others, like Norman Rockwell. The NMAI has the second largest collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, next to the Rockwell Museum, itself, in Stockbridge, MA.

The museum also includes the work of J.M. Flagg, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Frederick Remington, to name a few. Hung in abundance throughout elegantly-appointed rooms in the house, the exhibition presents more like a salon than museum. Personal touches and period furnishings add to the visual appeal of the works, contextualizing them for the viewer.

Panels from Maxwell Parrish's, A Florentine Fete (1911), hung in the Rose Garden Loggia at National Museum of American Illustration

For any that would argue illustration art is not ‘serious’, consider first the technical merits of the work and the fact that many artist, adopting this genre did so because of a lucrative publishing market, that sought out competent image-makers to support their editorial content and offer visual appeal at the newsstand. Director, Judy Cutler points out that, “At that time, if you were paid in advance to complete a work of art on a specific theme, then you were not considered a serious artist.” Consider that many illustrators trained with well-known artists of the early 20th century and that some, like Rockwell and Flagg, during their long careers and on their own initiative, tackled profoundly important patriotic and politically-charged issues as subject matter for their paintings (Artist, James Montgomery Flagg, himself, was the model for Uncle Sam in the iconic, ‘I want YOU! poster).

Maxfield Parrish, A Florentine Fete (1911), detail

Commenting on her own extensive collection of illustration art, celebrity, Whoopi Goldberg, describes the strong emotion and magic associated with finding well-crafted illustration plates of her childhood books. She points out that Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was, in its day, illustration art! It should also be noted that early 19th century painter, John Trumbull, was intent on documenting key events in the American Revolution, before they were lost to collective memory. His brush was his camera of the day. Winslow Homer began his career as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly. George Lucas, director and master story-teller on film, defines illustration art as, “Cultural artifacts infused with a sensibility of time.” For Lawrence Cutler, this means that, “illustration art carries with it a sense of history; either defining who we are through mass-produced images, or reflecting our identity as discovered through the artist’s eye.”

Norman Rockwell, Miss Liberty, Saturday Evening Post cover, July 1, 1943

A breathtaking series of large panels by Maxfield Parrish, hung in the Rose Garden Loggia and the stairwell leading up to the second floor, is an astounding representation of the early Art Deco style, epitomized by Parrish. Once adorning the 175’-long cafeteria walls at Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia (publisher of Ladies Home Journal), this commissioned series, entitled, A Florentine Fete (1911) was acquired by Judy Cutler when the business closed several years ago. Theatrical and romantic in their conception, each panel radiates with individual motifs and implied dramatic ‘moment’. Yet each is infused with the rich glowing color and subtle inflection of gesture or intent. One less obvious theme linking the works is the repeated appearance of Parrish’s companion, Susan Lewin. These panels, once part of a work-a-day office building setting, are well served in the naturally-lit loggia, garden views outside every window.

Norman Rockwell’s, Miss Liberty is another favorite, not to be missed. The central figure, preoccupied with her heavy burden, seems poised to bustle directly off the canvas. She represents America herself, carrying symbols of many of careers that women in the 1940’s were prohibited from. Rockwell captured a seminal historical moment as doors were being opened to women in the competitive market place, previously denied them. With humor, dynamic action and rich symbolism, he thus educates the viewer on an important issue in our collective history, without uttering a syllable.

Vanderbilt Hall and Vernon Court are symbols of a common history that define what Newport, Rhode Island once was. Both homes embodied the hopes and dreams of a people and era, long-past. Henry James once bitterly remarked that the Newport ‘cottages’ should stand there always, reminders “of the peculiarly awkward vengeances of affronted proportion and discretion.” But James could not imagine the dreams of a new generation and the re-purposing of these splendid spaces as havens of enlightenment and rejuvenation.

Thanks to people like Peter de Savary, and Judy and Lawrence Cutler and their exceptional efforts, Newport Lives!

by Richard Friswell, Executive Editor

Please post your secure comments in the section below. We welcome your feedback.

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Visit Vanderbilt Hall at www.vanderbilthall.com

See the collection of illustration art and scenes of Vernon Court at www.americanillustration.org

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 Magazine  

George IV, while Prince Regent, by Sir Thomas Lawrence(c. 1815)

  Unlike the neoclassical style of the second half of the eighteenth century that drew upon inspiration from ancient civilizations like Greece and Rome, Regency style furniture set out to copy and reproduce ancient forms of decoration. Well-known Regency furniture designers, such as Thomas Hope, James Newton, George Smith, and Henry Holland, borrowed from a wide range of classical sources. From the ancient Roman period, they appropriated symbols such as sphinxes, monopodia, chimera and griffins. Reaching further back still, they also sought inspiration from Egyptian masks. Items were produced for the privileged classes in luxurious materials, with veneers of zebrawood, mahogany and rosewood and were often embellished with and patinated and gilt mounts.  

Figure 2: Tripod table design with monopodia legs, publ. in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration Executed from Design, by Thomas Hope. Reprint of 1807 ed.,1970, plate 32.

 The monopodium, a decorative support consisting of the head and one leg of an animal, often a lion or leopard, was first seen in Roman furniture and was revived during the late eighteenth century by neoclassical designers, such as Thomas Hope in his 1807 publication Household Furniture and Interior Decoration [2] (see Figure 2). The use of these classical design elements helped to establish the ‘English Empire’ element in Regency furniture. [3]  

Antique sources of inspiration were also popular during the mid-eighteenth century and the French archaeologist, draughtsman, and collector Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières, comte de Caylus, encouraged interest in the study of classical subjects as a result of his 1752 publication Recueil d’Antiquités Égyptiennes, Étrusques, Grècques, et Romaines completed upon his return to Paris from a study tour of Italy and Greece. Figure 3 illustrates the profile of a Roman monopodium similar to the legs of the MFA chairs and also common in Hope’s designs.  

In 2009, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired a pair of Irish Regency monopodia armchairs owned by the Second Earl of Caledon, Du Pre Alexander, the son of the 1st Earl, James Alexander, who made a tremendous fortune in India. In 1776, James Alexander purchased the Caledon estate in County Tyrone, Ireland from Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork and Orrery, whose father had acquired it by marriage into the Hamilton family of Caledon in 1738. It is likely that a suite of these chairs were commissioned for Caledon castle. (right) Figure 3: Drawing of a Roman monopodium by A.C.P. Caylus from Recueil d’Antiquités Égyptiennes, Étrusques, Grècques, et Romaines I (1752), pl. XCV, no. II.  

A typical Regency era interior, showing the ample use of red, an influence of China trade.

Although these chairs have not been attributed to a specific designer, design drawings depicting similar panther monopodia were also made by the English architect and designer C.H. Tatham during his Grand Tour to Rome from 1794-1796. He traveled Europe to study classical remains, architecture, and decorative details, a project which architect, Henry Holland, later published as a collection of drawings. [4] As a result of Tatham’s scholarly approach to decorative details, he left his mark on the Regency style by paving the way for a strictly archaeological approach to furniture and design and drove the demand for craftsmen and designers to be well versed in the classical tradition. [5]  

Chairs embodying animal monopodia forming arm supports or, in the case of the MFA pieces, the front legs, were intended to be used primarily in a drawing-room or library. They were often more elaborate than parlor chairs, since they were produced in luxurious materials, such as mahogany, painted or gilded wood. [6]  The MFA chairs are further enhanced by the use of gilt bronze mounts to the top rail, a testament to the importance of the scheme for which they must originally have been commissioned.  

A recent exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts entitled, ‘Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection’ [7] highlighted a selection of the museum’s Regency collection. A future English Regency gallery at the MFA will include many fine works of art of the period.  

by Rebecca Tilles, Contributing Writer  

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[1] Martin P. Levy, “’Of Beauty’: Aspects of the Horace Wood Brock Collection of Decorative Arts,” in Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection (Boston: MFA Publications, 2008), p. 25.  

 [2] Household Furniture and Interior Decoration Executed from Designs by Thomas Hope (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1807).  

 [3] Clifford Musgrave, Regency Furniture, 1800 to 1830 (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 51-52.  

 [4] Ania Buckrell Pos, “Tatham and Italy: Influences on English Neo-Classical Design,” in Furniture History, vol. XXXVIII (2002), p. 58.  

[5] Ibid. p. 58, 60.  

[6] Musgrave, p. 95.  

[7] See the exhibition catalogue Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection (Boston: MFA Publications, 2008).  

Rebecca Tilles is a curatorial research associate in decorative arts and sculpture in the Art of Europe Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and has assisted with the exhibitions “Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815” (2007) and “Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection” (2009). She holds a BA in French and French Cultural Studies from Wellesley College and an MA in European Decorative Arts from The Bard Graduate Center in New York.

Detail, The Green House, Santa Barbara, CA (1983)

  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 Magazine   

The last McDonald’s restaurant in classic 1950s style, San Jose, CA. A Stanley Meston design

 Just as our built environment is littered with construction that is bane and banal, the contemporary detritus is a plethora of factious forms that have been generated by sophisticated software and technological zeitgeist. These visually enticing, yet vacuous assemblies, have appeared in great numbers on the choicest of urban and rural site, as if they’ve come to existence in a vacuum, with wanton neglect of their context and past architectural achievements. The brazen new work seems to have rendered the architectural old-guard meek and humiliated by the new, brash neighbor who’s just made its grand entrance to the scene. After the initial fanfare, these awkward juxtapositions serve only to disrupt the architectural continuity and further diminish the cultural fabric.   

Has the architectural universe been distilled to a choice between another fractured Frank Gehry, or a Kentucky Fried drive-through? Probably, the answer is yes, but if there is a way to be modern, smart, sincere, and beautiful, and to offer the promise of contemporary architecture deemed worthy by future generations, it’s worth some observation and introspection to understand how we can improve the current state of affairs.   

Justification for the current paradigm:

With sheer determination that mistakes wealth for truth, and truth for beauty, the collective sense of being modern purveyed by certain acolytes coupled with the desire to being ‘different’ has ambushed our ability to distinguish between good and that which is simply unique. When Modernism embraced the machine and its physical manifestation, represented by the Bauhaus School of design, how neatly did the philosophy fit with the need to re-build Europe after the destruction wreaked upon the continent during the First World War? The economic advantage of being modern begs the question as to what is serving whom? Did the style follow economic necessity or was it just a happy coincidence that a financially friendly form just so happened to fall upon the architectural scene when society could no longer afford to build the way it used to before the Great Wars? Form follows finance?   

(above) Jackson Heights: Queens, NY- a laboratory for new ideas in 20^th C. housing. This planned community introduced several modern planning ideas in 1920’s. ‘Towers’ designed by A. J. Thomas (1925), illustrate ‘Garden Apartment ‘ planning- open space and suburban amenities – within confines of city’s grid.   

What was left behind and lost was not only the tradition of a tightly-woven architectural fabric but, almost entirely rendered to the waste heap of knowledge was the language of western architecture, developed and refined over the past 2,500 years. Perhaps the formal architectural predilection that we understand to be modernism evolved to suit manufacturing methodology and then continued to develop to the present day where even more sophisticated machines not only build the physical components and assemble the project, but then these machines are again employed to actually create the design itself.   

Even if there were a place for the language of architecture as we once knew it, how would we know it if we saw it anymore? Willful negligence and inexcusable ignorance regarding reference, context and a lack of reverence for appropriate precedent has resulted in the jettisoning of architectural and cultural context—so essential to the success of any architectural response. Have we lost for an eternity the architectural landscape that embodies those cohesive qualities of a built environment that were once taken for granted but are today only packaged and preserved in precious “historic districts”? Or is it possible to be both modern and reverential at the same time?   

Justification for trying something else:

This image and those below: Details of the Green House (1983)

 Not only is historical and cultural reference a valid, honorable, and completely modern point of departure for the design of a new building, but only an edifice that is fundamentally relevant can be considered truly modern; because its very nature embraces qualities that pay attention to its context, heritage, materials, culture, and its essential nature to be a product of the current time.   

The understanding of purpose and place and the difference between here and there are primary factors that warrant a project to be deserving of construction relative to one that is better left on the computer monitor because it didn’t know any better. Is there any reason that “Stupid” should be substituted for being “Smart” just because it’s been purveyed and then consumed as being “cool”?   

What I did:

The Green House, a single-family, three-bedroom house in Santa Barbara, California, is a construction that was commissioned by my mother, Norma Green, in 1981 and completed in 1983. As a Promethean effort for a newly-minted architect, this project provided the post-thesis culmination of idea, idiom, and execution. This writing is an investigation of concepts that are timeless and a retrospective of a specific architectural response that intends to be modern even though the last brush stroke of paint was applied nearly twenty-seven years ago.   

The design inspiration point of departure for the Green House arose from the Southern Californian Mission Style of architecture and surrounding Mediterranean landscape. The goal was to deliver an innovative, yet historically-informed design, into the ongoing diatribe of current taste and classical virtue; thereby making it essentially ‘modern’.   

The dissection begins with its composition. Modern convention insists on the arrangement of pure geometric volumes, planar screens and linear exclamations, celebrated to the exclusion of ornamentation, which would otherwise distract from the purity of sheer form. The assembly of these elements is both additive and reductive, creating a variety of dynamic forms that are perceived by mass and void and by the changing play of light and shadow.   

One experiences this architectural object through time and space and an unfolding view that cannot be fully digested in one sighting, but only fully appreciated by collecting immediate visual perceptions and combining them with a collection of previously digested memories of the edifice, giving power and life to this form. Inspired by spatial ‘surprises when touring through an Italian hill town, sightlines are designed to be abbreviated, changing, and without repose. Vistas open up to the viewer as the culmination of a lengthy approach. The banal and anticipated are vanquished in favor of the unexpected and varied, enjoining the relationship between landscape and serendipity.   

The courtyard, with its galvanizing point-of-focus, provided by the single palm tree, finds its precedent with the atrium house of the Vettii in Pompei. While the steep hills of Sycamore Canyon have been employed as a substitute for the “fourth wall” of the atrium space, the quality of this private/public outdoor vestibule remains true to the function of its predecessor. Openings to the house and garage are screened or framed according to the desired visual access deemed appropriate for these specific functions.   

The interior of the house seeks to provide a seamless play of the same compressed and expansive volumes that are experienced outside, only with a ceiling involved. Saltillo tile, a commonly found mission-style paver, is used at the exterior and then carried into the house as finished flooring so as to further interfere with standard conceptions of outdoor and indoor spaces. White stucco walls… monolithic, common, and ordinary to the region further support the sense of place and yet are the binding surfaces that transform the geometry of the structure to a uniform and cohesive composition.   

Could this house exist anywhere other than in Southern California? Perhaps so, but I would like to think not nearly as successfully. Can its design be traced to a specific date in time? I would hope that it could because only the honesty of a detailed design response that is acutely aware of its specific time and place of creation warrants the brand of being modern. It is also true that only the qualities of the design that are steeped in the context and tradition of this specific project will spare the house from appearing as dated. That fate would be a failed miscarriage of conception that places a preconceived form ahead of its influences, instead of the design of an architecture that gathers its strength and integrity out of respect for discovering the truth, without fear of finding it and with confidence that the journey will end with a design that is beautiful and consummately modern.   

William Green, RA, Contributing Writer   

To see more images of this project and others by William Green & Associates, Architects, go to www.wgaarchitects.net

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.

Nigerian Children by Adobe Hut. photo: P. Thrane

Stephen Grasso and Rainer Schrom, co-principals of Partners for Architecture, Grasso invited me to tour their newly-renovated, sustainable studio space. Once a factory plant that manufactured shims for tanks during World War II, the studio’s smaller conference room was originally a vault that stored sensitive paperwork. Now, the original weathered brick walls display the firm’s current drawing board sketches and construction documents, ranging from country clubs, to high rises, to cultural art centers. The sleek work space is a pangaea of openness and light, allowing for a liberal exchange of ideas among the seven architects.

“There are two types of people in the world,” says Grasso, offering an espresso, “the Oppressed and the Oppressor. As a group of architects of different backgrounds in this office, we like to believe that how we design, creates positive cultural effects. We realize our actions and the choices we make have consequences, not only on the local natural environment, but on the psychological landscape on a global scale.” As architects and creative thinkers, Partners for Architecture did not associate with either the oppressed or the oppressor; they served to bridge the gap with a vision and a leap of faith into a cultural darkness. Design, as they had known good design to be, was thrown out the window and they welcomed this freedom-to-reinvent as a breath of fresh air. Inspiration, they believe, comes from no preconceived notion.

Students traditionally sit in a circle, a design element in the new building. photo courtesy UNICEF

Faced with many challenges of designing schools in the heart of the African jungle, it took one to two weeks to fully understand the task at hand, recalls Schrom. “Any of our sophisticated construction methods that involve machinery simply would not work. We learned to build literally with our hands. There was no running water, no sanitary system, no electricity, no paved roads.” These were their limitations and it was liberating.

Perhaps the most critical realization for the firm was the fact that Africans live outside; their lives revolve around the landscape and they see architecture as shelter from the sun. African architectural images tend to consist of adobe-walled, circular grass-thatched humble huts, camouflaging into the earth’s brownness. A history riddled in poverty and war, for centuries Africa has succumbed to western and eastern influences in religion, politics, economics and architecture. Most devastatingly, though, has been the recent civil war–creating tension between brothers, alienating neighboring countries and leaving millions of indigenous peoples uprooted and oppressed. Diverse landscapes of tropical rainforests, open grass plains, and thick mangroves have been destroyed through the actions of paramilitary, slash and burn practices. Rich in diamonds, gold, minerals, iron ore, cocoa, and coffee, these countries’ lands have been mined and exploited and left barren.

Partners for Architecture’s design for a master plan school community was to assist UNICEF in lifting the oppression. Given a plan that prepared the site by clearing trees, Partners for Architecture rejected it, saying they would not contribute to a design that further encouraged deforestation. Instead, they developed a beehive-like layout of hexagonal shaped pods dispersed between the trees, allowing for a flexible plan that could be adapted to different locations and easily expanded upon.

Students using exterior hallways. photo courtesy UNICEF

“We have designed the pods to consist of three sections. Safety was a critical design issue. The first access area is the most publicly-used space. Then, we move further into school administrative offices and the computer labs, and finally the most private classroom areas, with the youngest group of children are sheltered by the inner-most circular space. Africans tend to teach their children in circles rather than rows. The hexagon shape leaves an opportunity to build community and share borders,” explains Schrom.

All the hallways are open-air exterior spaces. The building materials are native wood, metal, and adobe. The roofs are solar equipment-ready, so that panels can be installed and wired to provide the electricity for the computer lab. Rather than covering the classroom ceilings with a metal roof, Partners for Architecture proposed incorporating vibrantly colored hand-woven African fabrics strewn over the rafters that evoke an unspoken history.

Both Grasso and Schrom agree that dialogue with the African people was critical in planning the design. “We welcomed their opinions and needed their knowledge just as much as they wanted ours. We worked with a local African architect who was able to explain the simple building method to the labor force. The locals participated in all phases of the project from the conceptual to the physical construction.”

The finished school uses local materials, labor and is designed with climate condition of the country as a principle consideration. photo courtesy UNICEF

In addition to the physical structure and aesthetics, Partners for Architecture strategized how the buildings would function. Because there was no running water or sanitary sewer system available, dry latrines were proposed to avoid disease. A hybrid of two design ideas, the lavatories are located in dark interior spaces. Screen covered chimneys allow for light but prevent flies from entering. The human waste is then collected, composted, and used as fertilizer to re-introduce nutrients into the soil. In a most basic sense, even the design of the latrines is a system of giving back and making the soil fertile again.

“As architects, we are trained to look at negative or void spaces that buildings leave behind and we attempt to carve out a special place. We believe that positive buildings in communities won’t be vandalized because their function is clear. We find satisfaction in designing public buildings because they have a larger impact on community and society. In our corner of America, what is most important is the real estate market and property value. People build homes for the next buyer rather than tailoring their homes around their lives. A home should be an investment in life rather than the market. Everyday is a struggle to find a meeting place of cultural differences. We think where the sun meets the horizon is our common ground,” reflects Schrom.

by Michelina Docimo, Contributing Writer

Construction on the schools began in February 2009 and continues to progress. Currently, five schools in the Republique de Guinea have been completed, providing safe havens of education and communication to promote peace, a process that never ceases.

Partners for Architecture is located at 48 Union Street, Stamford, CT 06906.  For inquiries regarding design, planning, LEED certification, cost feasibility analysis, and corporate or community lecture opportunities on sustainable design, please call (203) 708-0047 or visit www.pfarch.net

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Kathleen Patricia Thrane is a painter, documentary photographer, avocational archaeologist, and activist. Trained at the New School of Social Research Parson’s School of Design, Thrane has lived in Africa, the Far East, Asia, and Europe documenting poverty, discrimination, politics, and culture. Thrane’s biography and sample works can be viewed at: www.alexideas/website/kpthrane/artist.html  email: thrane@optonline.net

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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.

Two stone figures from the Philippines draw focus towards the view of downtown San Francisco. The richly colored wall help minimize the reflections in the glass. White walls would have obstructed the view.

The beams are open at the top and float down from the ceiling six inches. This space allows two parallel runs of LED strip lighting by Edge Lighting to bounce illumination off the ceiling. This adds a layer of gentle fill light for the space, softening the shadows in the room and gently drawing visual attention to the high ceiling. Normal beams, installed flush to the ceiling, would have made the ceiling feel lower.

These beams also house recessed adjustable low voltage fixtures made by Lucifer Lighting that provide focus for the art, art objects and the table settings. These luminaires are using dimmable LED MR16 lamps, available through Focus Industries. The warm color temperature of both of these sources gives the feel of incandescent light from an energy efficient, low maintenance source.

The two paintings by Marianne Kolb were further enhanced with a pair of custom picture lights fabricated by Phoenix Day Company. The electrical contractor, Schulkamp Electric, used a radio controlled dimming system by Lutron to dim the lighting. Whitehead notes the lighting strategies that help complete the look of the room: ” Silver Candelabras by George Jensen from the 1930’s and a table lamp create the illusion of providing the room’s illumination. Recesses adjustable fixtures help to highlight the table setting and console.”

The end result is both architectural and subtly alluring. Guests are drawn into the room by the juxtaposition of the modern art and antiques. The illusion is that that the candles are creating the ambience, while in fact it is the well integrated lighting that paints the room with lush illumination.

by Randall Whitehead, IALD, Contributing Editor

Credits:

Lighting Design: Randall Whitehead IALD, Randall Whitehead Lighting Inc

Interior Design: Michael Merrill ASID, Michael Merrill Design Studio

General Contractor: Muratore Corporation

Electrical Contractor: Schulkamp Electric

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.

Ilse Gropius relaxing on second floor terrace, Walter Gropius House, Lincoln, MA. Walter Gropius, Architect, 1938; Robert Damora, Photographer, 1948

During the course of our conversation, I learned that Damora, born in 1912, was inspired by stories by his father (himself an architect) and had, in his own lifetime, known and worked with all the great figures of mid-century architecture and design. Since graduating from Yale School of Architecture in 1953, he practiced his craft during a period when visionary architects and designers were actively shaping the look of America’s landscape, as cities and suburbs burgeoned in the years following World War II. What Damora found in his new profession was the opportunity to meld a long-standing interest in photography with his emerging passion for architecture.

Damora came of age in an era when science and industry were defining Western culture. His father, who died when Robert was two, was an architect, musician and inventor. “Maybe it runs in the family”, he said. Ever the photographer himself, he served in the Navy during the war with the Bureau of Research and Invention. While there, he worked with fellow enlistee, Edward Steichen, already recognized as a renowned photographer. Together, they mounted a show at the Smithsonian Museum of Science and Industry after the war, exhibiting technological advances that were the result of military research. Given this technological background, Damora received his bachelor’s degree in architecture with a new appreciation for how the mechanical and structural heart of a building can combine with the aesthetics of the design process to create an object of beauty.

Architect Walter Gropius: visionary, leader, teacher (1883-1969); Robert Damora, Photographer, 1948

He devoted the rest of his life to capturing that blend of heart and soul on film.

 Architecturally, modernism was in full flower in the early ‘50s. The major schools of architecture were being heavily influenced by a well-known group of architects and designers who had emigrated from Germany prior to the war. Among them was Walter Gropius, then the director of Harvard’s architecture department. At Yale, Damora studied under another giant in the field, George Howe who was chair of the department at the time. After graduating, Damora went to work for U.S. Steel on an exploratory design project. But, in addition to working for many years as an architect on this and other projects, his love of photography and his desire to document structures being completed by himself and his colleagues, meant that his catalogue of carefully-planned images would continue to grow.

Damora reflected back on that period: “Gropius often said that the conditions that existed for the faculty at the Bauhaus School in Dessau, Germany in the 20s and 30s, allowing for free-ranging and creative thought in design, were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”, he said, “In spite of the fact that many critics said he was out to recreate the purity of the European modern design style in the U.S, he knew it would never happen again or happen here. Gropius, who had an intuitive understanding of architectural space, turned his attention to what the next generation needed and trained his students to be forward-thinking, while continuing to analyze history.”

*Cape House”, 1962. See detailed citation at end of story

“This influence produced architects in the late 40s like Philip Johnson and Landes Gores, two of the group that became known as the ‘Harvard Five’. Gores was trained as a ‘modern’, but had a sincere love of history—and it showed in his designs. Johnson came out of Harvard a modernist, too; but eventually adopted the historical influences in his work.” He felt that “Johnson’s best contribution to modern architecture was in the area of promoting and popularizing architecture as a whole, first at the Museum of Modern Art and then, in his continuing ability to expand interest in architecture through teaching, the media, support of the work of other architects and his colorful personality,” Damora explained.  “Johnson’s work was influenced by his great love for and understanding of art.  He had impeccable taste and was an expert on scale and placement; but from a design perspective, he seemed to be influenced by the current tastes of the times”

As Damora continued to talk about the architectural work of others, I got the clear impression of his love for line and form and his inherent understanding of the skills needed to achieve them. “As an architect, I can look at a building and understand the intent of the designer. A good building is like a person who impresses the hell out of you. How they express themselves on the outside helps you to understand what they’re made up of on the inside. Good architecture stretches the essential elements of the human spirit to the highest point.”

Damora would spend hours or even days in the presence of his subjects, waiting for the moment when the light, sky and surroundings would show off the designer’s intent to maximum effect. The result would be an image that captured the essence of the building, with all its character and personality, as though it were a human subject sitting in front of the camera lens.

Hancock Building, Boston, MA, Henry Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Architects, 1976; R. Damora Photographer, 1977

Damora also saw the construction of many buildings of his own design. He embraced the concept of “Total Architecture”, meaning design that goes beyond form alone to include function, strength and beauty. “I believe that beautiful design should not just be the province of the elite—architecture needs to be democratic—that is, it belongs to everyone; to the general population. He made good on this commitment in his design work with U.S. Steel and its subsidiary, Universal Atlas Cement Company, whose, ‘Seeds of Architecture’ project raised the aesthetic of high-grade cement and steel-reinforced concrete to an art form. Projects commissioned by Paolo Soleri, I.M. Pei and Paul Rudolph are considered iconic examples of modern design using these products and garnered Damora national recognition for his work.

His project, ‘Better Homes at Lower Cost’, in the early ‘60s, also brought Damora’s vision for simplified construction techniques, using fewer components and factory, pre-assembled elements to the job site, into the public arena. This forward-looking approach to design met his goals of making homes both affordable and visually attractive. Examples of projects completed during this period are extant today and remain striking in their use of line and form to create a dramatic architectural statement at reasonable cost.

In parting, he said, “I am always thinking about new ways to do things…I don’t put on my shoes in the morning without thinking about new ways to solve old problems. The search for innovation is not easy, but I have learned how to do it through years of trial and error. Good architecture is as much structural components as it is art—and art is not logical—it comes out of the heart and soul.”

* * * *

June 10, 2009

Rockefeller Guest House, NY, NY. Philip Johnson with Landis Gores andFrederick C. Genz, Architects, 1950, Robert Damora, Photographer, 1950

Passion, precision, stubbornness, an eye for detail, patience, a reverence for beauty…these are all terms used to describe the late Robert Damora as I sat with his wife and children, Jesa and Matt, in the living room of their home, recalling the man whose life’s work we all so admire. With humor, fondness and just a touch of frustration, they fondly recount the times when each stood in as photographer’s assistant, model or Sherpa on various photo shoots around the country.

Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY. Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone, Architects, 1939; Robert Damora, Photographer

Bob Damora was a perfectionist, waiting endless hours for the clouds to frame a shot correctly, manipulating his multi-plane camera to eliminate distortion and depth-of-field issues and focusing each shot with the help of his family and assistants. The irony of Damora’s work was that, as a photographer, his sight had been failing for years. The family explained that, without their assistance, he was unable to determine the final focus on a shot. But prior to that last adjustment, he would work endlessly underneath the black drape that shielded the ground glass plane of the camera’s-eye view from daylight. With a napkin over her head, Jesa offered a loving imitation of her father’s head and shoulders weaving and dodging erratically beneath the camera’s cloth, all the while flailing his hands to make adjustments on the device itself. Given that the image, from his perspective, was upside down and the detail was muted by the glass plate, he nevertheless succeeded in capturing the subject with a perfect balance of light, form and drama. She went on to tell me that if the elements did not align themselves that day, he would stake the tripod’s spot on the ground, make a note of his settings and return the next day to do it all over again!

General Motors Technical Center, Warren, MI. Eero Saarinen, Architect 1956; Robert Damora, Photographer, 1956

Sirkka recalled that her husband loved to teach and to challenge his students. “He wanted to communicate his ideas with his students, she explains, “It was part of his belief in the democracy of architecture…that they should know how good design works and to be able to bring it out into the world for others.” Ingeniously, he took a lesson learned from Edward Steichen many years before and would mask the center of an image with a piece of cardboard. “In design”, she relayed to me how he would say, “take care of the middle and the edges will take care of themselves.” He believed that this lesson would apply equally to design, as well as the photographic image.

In his career, the family told me, he had interacted in the company of all the greats: discussing with Mies van der Rohe his theory on structural resolution; Philip Johnson and his views on the placement of a building in the landscape (Johnson- “A tree in the wrong place is just a weed that needs to be pulled.”, Damora had told me); Gropius and his intuitive understanding of architectural space; Louis Kahn and his theoretical lectures that students had trouble grasping; Frank Lloyd Wright, whose lectures might last all day; Ballentine beers in the front yard with ‘Bucky’ Fuller as they regaled one another with architectural tales of the fanciful and the futuristic.

But, in the end, Damora will be remembered for his graphic images of the work of all these men and more: Paul Rudolf; John Johansen; Eero Saarinen; Victor Gruen; Edward Durrell Stone; Marcel Breuer; furniture designer, Florence Knoll and many more. His reward for time spent on a project was to discover the spirit and energy of a building through the eye of his camera. “The more he sat with a building”, Matt Damora told me, “the more it opened up to him, allowing him to see things that others didn’t. My father had the ability to study a space and then train the camera lens to that precise spot in the room where he wanted the viewer to be standing. The ability—to create a third dimension and to figure out where you, the viewer, would be— was his gift as a photographer.”

“He knew his equipment and its capabilities, even though some of it was cumbersome and labor intensive”, Jesa told me. “His camera was an extension of his intuitive understanding of architecture. He had an instinctive understanding of what to do, but planned painstakingly, nevertheless”, she explained. “There was a clean quietness in his photographs, many of which have long been considered iconic.” A careful and intimate review of two dozen or more of his most important works, there in the Damora living room, certainly proved the point beyond a doubt.

And the iconic images of Robert Damora will endure like the buildings he portrayed, because as Gropius writes, “He has an intuitive understanding of architectural space…, a most acute vision, and… knows how to bring out the best…” of the world of architecture

by Richard Friswell, Editor-in-Chief