[quick note on a performative line]

Jetty at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

[notes from an underground world]

Recent thesis explorations of soil as a cultural and sensory landscape (more to come) led me to these recently-discovered subterranean worlds. The first is a laser survey of the 450+ Nottingham Caves in the UK that perforate the sandstone cliffs that support the castle facade. Dubbed appropriately by National Geographic as "business in front, party in back" the Vikings who constructed these caves around 800AD intimately knew the economy and extravagance of space-making. 

http://youtu.be/i6DJU09yKKg?hd=1


Images courtesy of Nottingham Caves Survey. 




The second underground landscape is the largest fossilized tree forest found to-date from the Pennsylvanian geologic period (of the Carboniferous era) buried under 300 million years of sedimentation: the histories of plants, animals, and people. Today the cornfields of Illinois cover this window into an ancient ecology and a similar period of global warming. Read more on the New York Times or in Smithsonian. Renderings of these forests below with photographs of fragments of trunks, leaves, and roots.

Images courtesy of the Illinois State Geologic Survey.

[notes on framed views]

Framing views is one of the oldest and best tricks in the book of design. Visitor becomes voyeur. Peering into a neighboring space, between screens and filters, inhabiting multiple places in one glance. Like a dance, our eyes crave to move rhythmically and then come to a point of rest before continuing. A series of framed views in a space guides our eyes confidently from one point to the next. Our imaginations are fed by a sense of mystery, wondering what is omitted from the frame, what lies behind a corner, or where a light source originates. We're hooked, engaged in a space, left wanting more. 

"Dog Day 88" Pen and Ink wash on paper by the author, San Marco Church, Florence Italy

Framed sky at the Baptista, Florence Italy

"Sky Wall" mixed media collage by the author

Islamic Paradise gardens are known for using framed views. Here courtyards and series of framed porticoes in Oman create ethereal light and sublime shadows:

Early Islamic map of Mecca

(Above) Binary window frame at L'Alhambra in Granada, Spain; Photo by Javier Carro
(Below) Courtyard  grove at Paradores L'Alhambra with box hedge, pen on paper, by the author

One of the most famous frames, ever. View to the Treasury at Petra, Jordan. The contrast of irregular natural rock formations to the geometric and symmetrical architectural form of the facade makes it even more remarkable:

I recently studied the work of Annette Hoyt Flanders, little-known landscape architect from the early 20th century. She was trained in the Beaux Arts tradition (think classical French gardens with box hedges). So while her designs don't look edgy, she was a master of creating outdoor living spaces and depth with her framed views. Below are some examples of this in her work and her travels to Europe from her slide collection at Smith College, never published before:

Annette Hoyt Flanders “The Descent to the Woodland, Lewis L Estate, Syosset Long Island

Annette Hoyt Flanders Century of Progress Exhibit, Chicago Symmetrical Box Hedges

Annette Hoyt Flanders Classic Garden Century of Progress Exhibit 1934

Annette Hoyt Flanders, Location and designer unknown 

Annette Hoyt Flanders, Parterre Garden, McCann Estate, Long Island

Annette Hoyt Flanders, Meadows from House Terrace, Oyster Bay, Long Island

Annette Hoyt Flanders, Location unknown, likely Italy

Annette Hoyt Flanders, Villa Gamberaia, Italy

[notes on eileen gray, modern intuitive designer]

I'm embarrassed and shocked. That in my 31 years--surrounded by artists and designers, engrossed in art + architectural history classes at expensive art schools that I've never heard of Eileen Gray until this fall. Alas she was born into a man's era in 1878. She designed for 7 of the nearly 10 centuries that she lived. Imagine, such talent and diverse skill practiced for 70 years, pioneering the modern art movement yet without the education, mentoring, or recognition received by her peers: all because was a woman. 

Eileen Gray flanked by Le Corbusier and Jean Badovici

Eileen Gray's Rue de Bonaparte apartment, Paris

She was a gifted painter, lacquer artist, furniture designer, and architect (E-1027 in Roquebrune Cap Martin) whose influence was vast on the modern + art déco movements. I love that many of her designs are whimsical, sexy, funny, and simply beautiful. She had an unusual sense of atmosphere in her designs; an innate sense of negative space where a bowl or a chair or a room is inhabited by something or someone. 
That her publicly-known history is half gossip, and that she went largely unrecognized and unknown until recently is not surprising and unacceptable. The story goes like this: she was a contemporary and supposedly longtime unrequited love interest of architect Le Corbusier (who drowned while oddly swimming off the cliffs of her house in the French Mediterranean). He was and perhaps continues to be credited with many of her designs. 


The Dragon Chair was recently sold as part of Yves St. Laurent's collection for $28.3 million:

Dragon Chair Photos courtesy of Christie's

Nonconformist Chair

Transnat Chair

Transnat Chairs, Pair

She's perhaps most commonly known for her very modernist Bibendum Chair: 

Much of her work doesn't conform to the restrained army chant of modernists: "form follows function" (because sometimes design moves must be purely intuitive) like this lotus lacquered + tasseled table, benches, screens, and chaise longue below:

Rue de Lota apartment with her Pirogue chaise longue (also pictured below with lacquered screen)

Lacquered screen 

Wall painting at the house she designed, E1027 in 1926 for Jean Badovici

Dressing table

DWR should be ashamed that they only carry one mediocre modernist piece, a side table. 
Thanks to RISD professor, designer, chef Peter Tagiuri for introducing me to the intuition-driven work of this talented woman.
If you're interested in hearing my take on why it was she designed spaces so well, I'd be happy to elaborate. Thoughts?