ARTES MAGAZINE

Experiencing the creative work of architectural brothers, Greene & Greene, is like sipping a rare, richly-made wine—offering sensory delights from the firm of two authentic American Arts and Crafts masters. As the brothers Greene—Charles and Henry—worked primarily in California, they created the ‘gold standard’ for the Arts and Crafts design style. Their work, both as [...]

On a recent trip to Europe, my plane had an extended layover in Amsterdam. So, on a pre-planned quest, I journeyed by train from the airport to the ancient university city of Utrecht, The Netherlands, to see the austere, sculptural house—the Rietveld-Schroeder Huis, designed and built in 1924, by Gerrit Rietveld (left: photo by Mark [...]

Set on a verdant 49 acre landscaped campus with 13 other structures, in an odd 20th Century way, Philip Johnson’s Glass House is a bit like the Sphynx. It is iconic, sublime and rather mysterious. Johnson’s Glass House may be one of the best known residential structures in not only the United States, but the [...]

The Former Soviet Republic of Georgia is unique in every aspect – from its varied landscape ranging from the Caucasus Mountains, the coast of the Black Sea and the deserts on the border with Azerbaijan – to its art.  Georgia’s location makes the country a crossroads of cultures, from the Asiatic influence of the Persian [...]

The Cross is arguably the most familiar symbol of Christianity, but nowhere is this iconography as crucial or culture-entrenched, as it is in Armenia. Wherever you go, thousands of khachkars, or Armenian cross-stones, pervade the mountainous conscience of the world’s oldest Christian nation, providing a rare glimpse into the art of spiritual expression and its [...]

When the doors to the treasure house are thrown open, discrimination is not a viable option. There is only the slow walk through its many chambers, the visitor stunned at the heaped up glories. And so it is with the Yale University Art Gallery, now reconfigured and expanded on a grand scale. It is a [...]

When we think of the great art nouveau cities of Europe, images of Paris’s Metropolitan and Barcelona’s Gaudi-lined streets come to mind. Even high up in the Baltics, Riga has firmly established itself as one of Europe’s iconic art nouveau cities, with its own particular brand of modernism. Yet there is one city that is [...]

I love museums on the move, particularly those that take their mission to educate, seriously. Located in a beautifully-renovated former post office, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (left) boasts an international collection deserving of repeated accolades. With the earliest renovation of the original structure by architect David Adler in 1939, and with several more expansions and improvements [...]

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 [...]

Classical limestone bank buildings line the streets of downtown Wilmington, Delaware; facades that suggest prosperity and life. But until recently, the streetlights shining vigilantly at night exposed nothing but emptiness.  And, although Wilmington became a national financial center for the credit card industry – since the Financial Center Development Act of 1981 removed the legal [...]