Lately...

My brood and I hit the West Village....only to tumble into this roving vehicle of tricked-out art.  John, the artist driving the "Convoluted Construct" can be located at ConVoCon.com.  His business card is printed on canvas = a guy who will make you think out of the box.

pen to paper

Nicholas Ouchenir's pen styles read like independent conversations.  Each slant seems to be capable of speaking volumes.

before AUTOCAD

This photo of Frank Lloyd Wright is spectacular. 

j'adore....

....Pelle Lights for the design of their thick cord suspenders and brass hardware. 

ersatz sensibility

  Guggenheim- check it out.

yum

Artist, Karen Kilimnik entices you with a Degas-esque stroke and then hits you with a smokey eye....



.... total yum.

macho man

Drinks Before Dinner, a Paul Davis work... is a gentle cocktail of Alex Colville and Spanish fly.  Love it.

Monograms

Personal tones of insignia are delightful.  Bill Crosby is known for his spinning wheel of dreamcoat sweaters, the Lone Ranger had Tonto and JFK for his Wayfarers.
During a Metro North snafu (and in a sly bid to grace the preteen grid) I tried on my son's signature navy ear muffins.  They are actually.... quite fabulous. www.urbanears.com. 

sunny disposition

best selling design of sunglasses.... in history

Gimme Moore

Gagosian is satiating Henry Moore enthusiasts with "Late Large Forms" .
Once the squad of perfect storms relinquish, the exhibition is scheduled to open this month in Lower Manhattan.  Bucolic settings are the usual digs for these pieces, fallow gallery space is not their typical "hamster wheeling" zip code. 
It will be curious to see how the behemoths play out when strangled in captivity.  

From hank to hendrix

...nothing beats a Joel Bernstein photographic essay of  the Harvest Moon legend.   London's Snap Gallery has dedicated it's walls to this stubble burning bomb.  Neil Young in  his glory.

Je Voudrais

1.  Black Chuck Taylors
2.  Poolside's rendition of Harvest Moon
3. To be in the glare of Bec Brittain's Shy 088
4. A generator with Snake Plissken endurance

Funestration

 For December, Disney will be usurping the piano nobile of Barney's position along the Madison Avenue landscape.  "Electric Holiday" is the theme for this season's annual window blitz.  Designed to assault pedestrians with a multi-platform score of music, lights and fashion... theatrics will carol the architecture of street life. 

Where's the beef?

Modena's Hosteria Giusti has been tailored for the truly epicurious.  Garnished with a cut of secrecy, it reigns supreme in it's designed approach.
Beckoning from an ominous Freemans-style alley, the salumeria requires patrons to call from a hull of darkness.  Once reservation has been confirmed, louvered doors swing open and light reveals a lilliputian dining emporium scaled around four dining tables.  Andiamo.

Culturally Uplifting

West 8 designed this undulating thread which buffers Toronto's spread of Lake Ontario.  Appearing to be contorted from seismic activity,  it's pallid gesture is a unique silhouette along the monotony of pedestrian paving.  The amalgamation of form and function that play on proportion and scale.... beautility.

Heeling hijinks

A perfect pairing.

the lexicon of street

Graffiti artist, Barry McGee tats his serifs with a candy striper slant.  The double wide sidewalk and picture lights persuades the diffident urban landscape to transform to gallery art form.  
                                

The Bomb

The transition between stone and lawn can be an abrupt mess.  With the addition of these grenade-esque sculptures, they smooth the passageway along this threshold with a Mycenaean edge .

Between Tread and Rise Find Stile

For several weeks "staircases" have been romancing my periphery vision.  Enjoyably, the skeletal thread that binds this infrastructure together is a nautilus-inspired interruption to my linear persuasion.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Janus et Cie, maker of all things stunning, has launched their new line of futuristic outdoor furnishings.  This set certainly solves the conundrum of how to store your patio furniture over the the shoulder season. 
Headquarters must have been boning up on the Gestalt theory when this baby was hatched.  Part function, part sculpture... Fly me to the moon.
 

crosby redux

Just when the ink from my latest post on the Crosby Street Hotel became stale, they beckon me with a third digit....a rooftop culinary garden.  Should stars align, reel yourself into the Sunday program. Enjoy the screening room while you dine on locavore deliciousness and then tuck yourself into the folds of the Meadow Suite for a full throttle circumference of the Crosby campus. 

scarpetta

Scarpetta's  dining pavilion is a well braced addition to Toronto's downtown core.  One main dining table references summer camp chic as it collides with the urban landscape.

Palazzo Margherita

In a small hilltop town in southern Italy, Francis Ford Coppola has opened a boutique hotel.  The exterior courtyard gestures early tufa construction practices while the scaled plantings create a sanctuary to enjoy the bouquet of your spirit.

Design on the Land

A refurbished landscape at Trinity College has an intriguing approach.  While the circular tree pits seem to abbreviate the repetition of the grass and concrete mural, I like the integration of hard and soft materials. 

Groove is in the art

The MET is assuming a fresh  maquillage with the arrival of hip hop artist in residence, DJ Spooky.  His assignments include a narrated audio tour of the Oceanic Galleries and customizing a string composition for an upcoming film release.
His youthful spin will pierce the ancients like a shot of Juvederm.

hay day

On a recent jaunt to the Nursery, I met artist Michael Shaughnessy in the parking lot.  Mom taught me never to talk to strangers but this fellow had a four foot finial of hay strapped to the roof of his car.  And so, I just had to say "Hey".  His medium and handiwork are fantastic as an installation along the water or, crafted into a quiver of smaller orbs to form a clutch of garden stools to roll up to an outdoor table. 
www.shaughnessyart.com

 

Tickling the Ivories

Christopher Payne's photo documentary of Steinway & Son's Astoria outpost is stunning. "Piano rims in conditioning room" is currently on view at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery.  The shadows from the carcasses of the piano hauls forms a fantastic rhythm by way of the measured tick of a metronome.

rocket st george

www.rocketstgeorge.co.uk  is a British outfit donning artifacts for home and garden.  A dig through the website will unearth a spate of these winsome metal signs.

Crosby

I was first intrigued by The Crosby Street Hotel when I stumbled upon an inviation to join their movie club from the grounds of their intimate screening room.  Within the week, the hotel crossed my path again.  This time, it was their Meadow Suite.  Just beyond the steel case wall of the sitting room is your own private slice of the High Line. 

Mama

Philippe Starck has birthed a line of hotels in France that he has baptized "Mama Shelter".  Unlike his brood of Ian Schrager hotels, these have been modeled from hostel DNA.  Guests are swaddled in highfalutin design concepts on a Century 21 budget.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes

An installation was recently installed at Beatrix Ferrand's famed Dumbarton Oaks.  Wire mesh was festooned with crystals and suspended above a reflecting pool.  A little Vegas for me.  However, before the bloom was off the rose, I was enticed by the unassuming herb garden next door with it's wisteria arbor and fabulous hedge of pear.  Jackpot.

Well Done

The Meatpacking District is about to become a little plumper with the introduction of UrbanSpace.  Poised to open at the beginning of September, the souk-like marketplace will deliver a new cut to the High Line milieu.  My gut tells me that this post will soon become the meat and potatoes of the neighborhood.

Blinded By The Light

Last weekend I commandeered my brood to Freemans Restaurant, located at the end of a dark and gravely lit alleyway in NYC. Against all disciplined intuition, I was practically skipping down the sketchy lane with children in hand like a vacuous mosquito being sucked toward a deadly repellent coil. Curiously, the distant sight of holiday luminaries festooned from the doorway's entrance had me forsake all that my father had ever instilled in exercising prudent judgement calls. Once menu was safely in hand and Shirley Temples ordered, I realized that a couple of spiffy lights are social circuit breakers. Clearly, no matter the conditions of the surroundings, lighting implies the promise of safety.

Here's the quagmire for Malcolm Gladwell. When I was a Landscape Architect for the New York City Housing Authority, lighting plans were intentionally sparse. Illuminating areas only created a hospitable area for drug deals and petty crime to play out. Thugs relied on lighting to see monetary denominations to conduct "business" (It's only my provincial suggestion but, perhaps they should operate in colourful Canadian currency?). Contrary to conventional wisdom, by omitting these fixtures and dressing the site in a cloak of darkness, the public open space actually became safer.

So, the theory behind lighting is obviously not binary. In my opinion, lit areas should not be considered safe destinations in urban arenas and those with holiday twinkle lights - are a flashing yellow (a potential wolf in sheep's clothing)...approach with caution but order the three cheese macaroni when you are safely seated with menu in hand:)

50 Shades of Grey

Tori Tori is a restaurant in Mexico City designed by Esrawe Studios.  An amalgamation of  a Mies van der Rohe glass and steel structure with a fishnet stocking has me thinking...  it's sexy. 

Espalier

Espaliered trees are a visually tantalizing layer in any outdoor setting.  Historically, this technique of growing trees was used to increase fruit production in agricultural areas. Farmers realized that if they braced the trees along sun drenched brick walls, they could rely on the heat of the bricks through the night to speed up fruiting. Complete beautility.

WHO?

I can distinctly remember my singular thought when my older siblings subjected me to the movie Tommy when I was 6. "I don't get it". Another delusion of similar sequence washed over me when I recently read Architectural Digest's feature on the "design genius" behind the 1990 Draimes Garden in Ohio (above). Huh?
Dan Kiley was the true pinball wizard whom originally penned this installation in 1953 for the Miller Garden in Indiana (below).

London Bridge

I'm loving this Northwest London footbridge. Members of the shoe leather express must be positively soft-shoeing over the beautility of Heatherwick's engineered feat.

bloembinder

Daniel Ost is the bomb of the floral industry. In the sea of competition, he basks on the periphery as a lonely jewel. The monogamous relationship that he has cultivated with his medium truly defines the bandwidth of his concise talent. Each simple but emotive installation detonates a sensory oasis. Genius.

A Caspian Must See

Zaha Hadid's glass and reinforced concrete Heydar Aliyer Cultural Centre in Baku is splendiferous. With a Le Corbusier-like pitch, it appears that the roof structure was sown from the creases of the surrounding topography. The blur between the emerging landscape and architecture is fantastic.

Textile Field

The Raphael Gallery in London's V&A Museum is home to a sensational new installation by brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Crafted from foam and spanning 90 feet, the giant bed poses as a vast landscape to relax on while enjoying the surrounding art. The color palette for the upholstery was honed from the tones found in the surrounding Renaissance landscape paintings. I love how the artwork becomes a blanket around you. Genius.

Moss on Washington Street

While having lunch at the Standard Grill, I spotted a street artist peddling his charms from the further sidewalk. Over one heck of a Cobb Salad, I watched as he leafed through a Rolodex of Kate Moss-inspired canvases from the flatbed of his mobile office. With his Charles Barkley-sized dog at his side, the gregarious artist worked his illegal outpost on the sidewalk with such envious finesse. The generous social interactions "man and dog" cultivated with passing pedestrians was just marvellous.
I love the random opportunities that are spawned from large scale, urban street life. They seem to take root from the inhospitable shade and rock of concrete ambiguity.
For whatever reason, the anonymity of these landscapes seems to breed litters of personal exchanges and delightfully engages chance encounters. Brilliant.

urban scar

I was at the corner of 72nd and 5th Avenue waiting to cross the road into Central Park when I noticed this quiet installation. It was as if the sidewalk had torn open under the weight of the city and someone had kindly sewn it back together using industrial brass sutures.

Late Bloomers

Recently on exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery was Yayoi Kusama's "Flowers that Bloom at Midnight". I see it as a peculiar mix of Damien Hirst, Jean Dubuffet and MacKenzie-Childs. Interpretation aside, I'm not crazy about the yawn-worthy landscape surrounding the sculpture. How unfortunate.
If however, the sculpture was placed in a monotone, cold and imposing concrete jungle.....I would smile. A lethal injection of color to the urban tissue, it would appear as three dimensional graffiti. Now we're talking baby.