Established in the heart of the Sablon area in Brussels since June 2006, Pierre Bergé & associés has embarked upon a new project by dedicating its space to the creation of a new gallery devoted to Design.

After having developed major sales in this domain and created a reputation as the leading auction room in Belgium,  Pierre Bergé & associés is focusing its new gallery on the world of contemporary design and 1910 to 1970  American vintage .  The exhibitions usually explore the work of an artist or shed light on a specific theme.

With a surface area measuring 200 m2, white walls and a mottled grey floor, the gallery welcomes several  of the most popular designers once a year. Parallel to its design gallery and auctions, Pierre Bergé & associés  initiated a design prize ,the Skieven. The prize was awarded for the first time in the second half of 2008 to first-year students from design schools  encouraged to present pieces that have never been shown in the market.

During my stay in Brussels, and luckily for me, the gallery is showcasing an exhibition on American and Brazilian design . Vintage Brazilian furniture of the 1960s is definitely part of the major references in today’s design this is the reason why I am sure, the auction after the show, will ravish Belgian design collectors and amateurs from all over the country.

As per advice of the very kind Marie Le Tallec the company’s associate attache press from Paris , I decide to go and check the several pieces of the  furniture that became so familiar to me during the 25 years I lived in Brazil. At Rio de Janeiro doctor’s offices, Sao Paulo cozy apartments  , beach properties in Ubatuba and fancy boutique hotels in Curitiba now in the heart of the Sablon in Brussels. The furniture of great quality is from major Brazilian designers such the legendary Sergio Rogrigues, Jorge Zalszupin , from the States Milo Baughman and Carlo Hauner among others.

Several intersting factors can be easily noticed ; the love and respect for the wood, as well a s the comfort and simplicity of shapes as to pay respect with pride to the environment and the expression of a national identity. The key words of these very special people is to defend strongly their national treasure,  Amazonas.

Therefore Imbuia, Palissander or Jacaranda often coming from recycling wood, have contributed to authentic creations made with an exceptional execution which has allowed Brazilian furniture to be internationally known, reaching the top.

Having said that, we though it would be interesting to link Brazilian vintage to the talented work of the studio Makkink and Bey. Recognised internationally for his creation guided by recycling, science and poetry, the studio works in a world where techniques and sciences meet the poetry of the object.

Olivia Roussev who is in charge of the Galerie tells me that Pierre Berge & Associes exhibitions are accompanied by a mono-graphic catalog, at the price shown on the label, which is sent to collectors before the inauguration of the event. A website also was created with the possibility of making online purchases.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Gallery: Pierre Berger & Associe – Grand Sablon 40 Grote Zavel,Bruxelles, B1000 Brussels + 32 (02)49 49 90 00

Every time I spend a few days in Brussels I like to pay a quick visit to the man,  the artist , the genius , that created impressive flower arrangements at my sister’ wedding in the beautiful Chateau Saint’ Anne.

And what is most incredible is that the storefront of his is floral emporium feels like a breath of fresh — and beautifully perfumed — air.

Once called “La Chemiserie Niguet”  the shop was designed by the master architect Paul Hankar at the beginning of this century, is without any doubt one of the most out- standing  jewels of Art Nouveau in the city with an elegant , austere and exotic paradoxical  touch of Japonisme.

This man, also a master of a kind, is called Daniel Ost and is considered by many as the world’s foremost floral designer and sculptor. Daniel has the unique ability to envision life through flowers and creates absolute beauty through his passion and art. He has fashioned his own world of astonishing floral designs, which have earned him a devoted international clientele.

Recently the art and fashion worlds have also become acquainted with the 53-year-old floral designer: he created the arrangements for the opening of the Palazzo Grassi museum in Venice two years ago and erected a wall of pink dahlias, gerberas, hydrangeas and lisianthuses as the backdrop to Dries Van Noten’s spring 2007 collection. A couple of seasons later, flowers of all shapes and colors bloomed in almost every major collection.

Many of Ost’s best creations are included in the books “Leafing Through Flowers” , ” Transparent“  “Invitations” . This modern-day Belgian has inverted the old masters’ logic. These arrangements seem impossible, and yet they actually did exist.

Daniel Ost is more famous in Japan than anywhere else in the world, as Ikebana, Japanese flower arranging, is a well-established art form there. “There, flowers are connected with spirituality,” he has been nicknamed  “The Bridge  “for his ability to blend Eastern and Western influences.

“In the West we use them in a purely decorative way, but in Japan they work with the flower’s soul to express not just beauty but ideas like death.” Still, he hasn’t been ignored by his countrymen.

Within five years of opening his shop in Sint-Niklaas in 1985, he was receiving orders from the Belgian Royal Family, in 2005 he opened his second shop in Brussels and it has received wide critical acclaim and has been highly successful.

The process of decay interests Ost. “I’ve always wanted to show flowers in their optimum moment, but now that I’m older, I also want to explore the beauty of dying,” he says. As if to balance this somber impulse, Ost occasionally designs lush landscapes. “I like gardens because they’re about growing rather than cutting.”

His wormlike rows of bushes, winding pathways and large branch configurations that sprout from ponds are as dramatic as his more intimate pieces, but Ost insists that they are merely a side interest. “I only do them in places I like and for people I like.”

His artistry is in demand by royalty, celebrities, and corporations and his installations, which last only a few days, are extremely costly, but the artistic value is absolutely priceless.

To experience the Floral World according to Daniel Ost is like stepping into another world highlighted by the finest colors, designs and floral smells.

Over the past 30 years Daniel Ost has cemented his reputation as being the maestro in creating simple elegance and is in demand on the lecture circuit throughout the world to share and show his floral vision.

As he recently told to Arnmand  Limnader a reporter from the new York Times section Style, and published: June 22, 2008 “I make things very hard for myself because everything I do must be professionally perfect,” says Ost.

This man who has been known to travel 900 kilometers to collect the materials for one bouquet whose creations involve an ephemeral balance of beauty, spirituality and ingenuity, should one thinking of him  as just man, an artist a genius or a sculptor ?

Joelle’s Tips:

The Floral Designer:

The Source:

Bouquets Photos Credits: Courtesy of Daniel Ost

Step through the door and you find yourself in a hushed, dimly lit circular room with low white walls and a burgundy-red dome that seems to weigh you down with the intensity of its color. We are symbolically this is the beating heart of Kanaal. Speak, and your voice slims to a whisper or suddenly raises, the volume out of control; walk, and you will be overcome by a disorientating sense of dizziness.

In circular room containing an enormous red dome , perhaps the most dramatic space in the Kanaal “At the edge of the world” a permanent installation by Anish Kapoor. It is a space for contemplation and peace of mind. This extraordinary installation  is tucked away in a purpose-built outhouse at a warehouse complex owned by Belgian ’s most successful antiques dealer,  Axel Vervoordt. is this old circular brew house.

The influential tastemaker’s latest project is Axel Vervoordt Kanaal a circa-1860 former granary and brewery that sells the castle’s over- flow — Italian Renaissance bronzes, 18th-century English furniture, modern paintings — and doubles as a performance space for artists and musicians.

The ever-expanding activities, the increasing inventory, with more than 13.000 items in stock, and a lack of space at the castle for showing many over-sized objects, led Axel Vervoordt to look for an additional site. The old malting complex at Wijnegem was the ideal place to realize his ideas.

There he could use his expertise to recycle the past and re-evaluate the architectural significance of an old industrial site, while creating a stepping-stone to the 21st century. Kanaal houses showrooms, exhibition spaces, a museum and facilities for a range of other artistic activities.

Vervoordt’s story is as remarkable as his collection. He has been rapaciously amassing art and artifacts since his schooldays, when, visiting England with his father during the holidays, he would hunt for collectibles and bring them back to the city of Antwerp.

Mere mortals, meanwhile, can get a glimpse of Vervoordt’s collection year-round. It’s an artfully designed, theatrical space – more gallery than showroom – where you can walk away with a vintage vase-cum-lamp for us $ 400. Amid the warren of corridors and halls, you’ll spy a 13th-century Chinese statue of a priest meditating, a ritual axe from Ecuador or an abstract painting by one of Belgium’s best 20th-century artists. Covered sofas and coffee tables, many designed by May, are everywhere.

As a connection between the warehouse and the workshop, there is an impressive corridor featuring bare brick walls and concrete floors. It used to contain all kind of machinery and continues straight to the waterline of the canal. Hidden in the heart of Kanaal two large storage rooms contain over a 1000 pieces ranging from mantelpieces to wooden paneling, an inexhaustible source of treasures awaiting their rightful destination. A was newly built in order to join the office building to the monumental “Karnak“.

Column Hall or Karnak ( Office Building )

This vast hall of columns was named after the Karnak temple because of it’s remarkable resemblance and spiritual atmosphere. It houses a permanent exposition of the private collection, such as Thai sculptures and Buddha-torsos.  In the midst a forest of pillars in the building’s cement grain dryer  he installed his collection of Mon Dvaravati statues made between the 6th and 8th centuries by Indian monks who brought Zen Buddhism to Thailand. “It’s a challenging new context in which to reconsider these spare exercises in form from an earlier age and a different culture,” he notes

.

Corridor

When entering the ‘Kanaal’ this corridor immediately sets the industrial atmosphere of bare walls and high ceilings. The reception, logistics department, conference room , Boris’ office and Karnak are directly accessible via the corridor.

Boris Verdvo0rdt Office

With its old brick walls, barrelled ceilings, concrete floor and arched windows; the office has an authentic industrial feel. Situated on the axis between the end of the entrance alley and the high silos towering over the Kanaal complex.

Main Building – Gound Floor Central

The few pieces presented here are highlighted by a rather dramatic lighting. The white walls and high ceilings create the perfect environment for exhibiting antique garden statuary, massive stone tables, or even a collection of French stone masterproofs…

Main Building and Photostudio

Apart from antique furniture and objects, they also have a wide selection of antique building materials, such as mantelpieces, wooden paneling, parquets etc. This room is often used to display antique panelings.

Newly purchased items are immediately sent to the photo studio. Each of the 250 pieces that arrive here monthly have at least 3 pictures taken from different angles, they are also weighed, measured and labeled.

Main Building- 1st Floor Central

The first floor central is a perfect example for our eclectic style, mixing very different pieces in perfect harmony. The extreme simplicity of the rough concrete floor and dark grey walls create a spacious “loft” environment.

Light is everywhere and the architect home collection of daybeds, slipcovers, chairs and upholstered sofas all in white is superb and very comfortable.

Main Building kitchen

Tripped bare brick walls, old and withered, some of the paint remains might even date from the construction of the building in 1860.

The furniture exhibited in the kitchen is mostly rather simple and quite rustic.

Main Building Brown Room

After passing the meditation room, containing mostly English mahogany furniture, we continuously try to recreate the atmosphere of a gentleman’s office in this exhibition room.

Main building Casebere

Together with the grey room,  and near the kitchen, this room is named after the New-York based photographer James Casebere, this room features one of the artist’s works entitled “Two Tunnels”.This sober room presents mainly architectural Italian walnut furniture.

Loft (Main building Second Floor)

With its original arched windows, concrete floors and iron columns, the room presents pieces from our home collection, which have been designed by Axel Vervoordt himself.

Studio (Main Building Second Floor )

The impressive iron roof construction is the first thing that meets the eye when you enter this enormous space. The original arched windows offer the most beautiful view on the Albert Canal.

Central (Main Building – Second Floor)

Set between the red room and the studio, this L-shaped room is usually used to present charming “mountain” furniture.

Main Building – Third Floor- Upholstery Studio

Our upholstering studio, offers a wide range of natural fabrics used for the upholstering of antique chairs or sofas as well as for models from our Home collection.

Main Building -Third Floor- Modern Selection –

Situated on the top floor, this spacious, sun-drenched room overlooks the canal.
Here, surrounded by our most beautiful creations in home furnishings, our people give life to the home-collection every day. Many of which, brightly colored and Deco-styled, seem to come out from a Magritte painting.

The story begins with Vervoordt’s family history, and how he started buying and selling antiques when he was a student. As a young adult, he bought and restored a 16th-century house in the center of Antwerp. When numerous admiring clients asked him to do the same, he fell into decorating. Now, with a staff of 100, he personally supervises between 12 and 20 interior design commissions a year for a variety of royalty, pop stars, museums, bankers, collectors and musicians.

Though the Vervoordt castle and Kanaal are two entirely different buildings, some of the spaces and the way they are arranged with furniture, art or objects look very similar at the hands of Vervoordt. When Vervoordt decided to buy the Kanaal, a complex of warehouses, grain silos and a large round building, he wanted a truly minimalist environment where he could exercise his vision of “limitless spatial purity.” By stripping the buildings down to the bare wooden board or cement floors and exposed brick or whitewashed-cement block walls, Vervoordt hopes to show “how we might wish to live in the 21st century.”

Not only is the variety of the antiques and art that he offers awe-inspiring but so too is his philosophy. “I consider myself a very eclectic collector and dealer. I treasure the timeless and disdain the trendy,” states Vervoordt. “My taste spans centuries, continents and economic strata. I love the tension between different object and different cultures.” Two elaborate silver candelabra “taken away from some princely 18th-century dining table become not table decoration, not emblems of wealth and power, but strange and beautiful abstract objects,” he  writes in one of his  publications.

It embodies Vervoordt’s raison d’etre: “My task .. has been to rediscover works of art, to save them for the future, to reveal them for what they are, to show them at their best, to give them a better place in the world—and, perhaps, by doing this, to create harmony and find new ways of expressing the inner life.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The antique dealer ans architect: Axel Vervoordt

The Complex:  Kanaal, Stokerijstraat 19, Wijnegem / Tel  00 32 3 355 3300, Thursday, Friday 2-6pm, Saturday 11am-6pm.

Sources: Antwerp: Great away days  By Julia Davis / the Indipendent

Photo credit of Antwerp house:  Hotel Belgium Photoguide Used with the permission of www.hotels-belgium , www.trabel.com & www.arakea.com’. Alle rights reserved

” I sent my soul through the invisible, some letter of that afterlife to spell;
and by and by my soul returned to me, and answered, “I myself am Heav’n and Hell””

Omar Khayyam

I was born in Milan, I have a Brazilian nationality, a Spanish  passport, and I live part time in new York when seasons  bloom.

My father is from Lebanon his parents from Siria, my mother is from Lebanon as well and her father and mother are respectively from Turkey and Spain.

I have decided to take a break and spend sometime at my parent’s home in Brussels located in the charming neighborhood of Ixelles. Their house is a landmark duplex with South West bright sun exposure in a  light greyardoise facade built in the 70s with interesting Art Deco style balconies .

On the entrance hall, beautiful white Thassos marble from Greece, framed by a border designed in neoclassic black onix unmistakably capture one’s attention. The brightness of the white marble is enhanced  by a aligned procession of  small  halogen lamps strategically placed in different parts of the roof. I take my shoes off, with my camera I amuse myself to observe the different details around this hall.

A Persian carpet probably dating from the beginning of the century with a central motif representing a small house, maybe a synagogue, maybe a mosque near a tree that looks clearly like a Pinus Haleppensis typical of that region, lies in the center of this piece.

At my right a lacquered chest from Japan where on top my parents keep a  collection of equally Japanese smaller boxes also in lacquer, and a pair of original  containers giving the impression of being wood vases or lacquered baskets whose presence is  fundamental in  an Ikebana composition.

The sculpture at the end of the hall is placed on a pedestal in from of an Italian contemporary canvas by Toti Shaloya my mother says is Roman, and dates of the 2 century after Christ,she precises  looking straight in my eyes that if it dated 2centuries before Christ the sculpture would be Greek.

Without my shoes, I walk to the bibliotheque ( library) the most popular room of the whole duplex and this is because it’s the place where all the family spends most of the time.

It’s cozy, warm and has a  very equipped collections of art,  non-history  fiction books and last 40 years of hard cover and paperback  best sellers all in French.

The tones of the room are warm  Mediterranean oranges as to give a harsh contrast to the portfolio of greys typical of the Belgian capital weather. The two armchairs facing the window are upholstered in red satin and colorful trimmings and a very thin wool with Persian and Indian paisley motifs coming from the celebre Milanese house Etro in the neighborhood of Brera where I was born.

The carpet on the floor I brought very proudly a few years ago in a small suitcase from Istambul it’s a Bessarabian. While  looking down and noticing pleased that my crimson cashmere slippers fit perfectly with the surrounding atmosphere of colors and textures , I decide to take a look at the local newspaper ” Le Soir”.

An ivory inlay mirror on the illuminated shelf, probably brought from my same trip in Istambul, still emanating the aroma of fresh sandalwood after so many years, is distracting me from reading the paper. My portrait is reflected through the glass and I can’t help asking myself the same question…

Where exactly am I coming from? Without reasoning too much I go back to my reading and realize that one of the most acclaimed movies of the moment just came out. It’s called “ Le Concert“.

“Considered the greatest conductor of the 80’s, during Brejnev’s rule, Andrei Filipov was shamefully cast aside for supporting Jewish musicians, defying orders from the Soviet regime. 30 years later, Filipov still works at Moscow’s largest theater, the Bolchoi, but as a cleaner, and is profoundly affected by the degradation of the orchestra’s performing level…..”

I lift my eyes and my gaze stops over the Italian painter, Michele Cashella canvas on the opposite wall of the library, dated from the 1960.It depicts a Californian seaside landscape in early springtime where most of the area is covered by a large tree explosion of yellow Mimosa.

Next to this image in my mind, my eyes travel back to the shelf where a picture of my daughter and I lay behind a bouquet of dried Lavander interlaced beautifully with a  light orange cotton ribbon made from the region of Provence in South of France.

Back to the newspaper I read more about the film  ” One night, after an umpteenth rebuttal from the administrator from whom he was requesting his old position back, Filipov discovers a fax sent by the famous Parisian Chatelet Theater’s manager, inviting the Bolchoi to play in Paris two weeks later.

The old conductor has a ludicrous idea: with his wife’s help, he hopes to bring his old musician friends together to travel to Paris and pose as the prestigious orchestra.

Four years after his heart-wrenching «Live and Become», Jewish-Romanian-born French director Radu Mihaileanu further develops a theme which seems dear to him – positive imposture – and

weaves an dashing drama, between tears and laughter, confronting the contradictions of modern Russia to the discreet Western world of classical music.”

I decide the movie is just what I need at the moment. I cross quickly the bright yellow walled salon. An Austrian symbolist painting portrays a lady with a a gold necklace and dark and mysterious expression  almost as she’s coming from another world. It’s a ” gaze ” from another hidden dimension, one we are constantly looking to discover or to penetrate…

The movie, by Romanian director Mihaileanu (Train de Vie, Live and Become) has a knack for telling warm human stories about the dispossessed of all kinds including identity.

The beautiful Melanie Laurent,  (fresh from her breakout role in Inglourious Bastards) as young French violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet, confides to Andrey Filipov (Guscov) at a candlelight dinner before the concert in Paris, that when she plays her violin , she is constantly seeking for the ” gaze “of her parents,  presumably killed on an airplane crush in the European Alps .

Andrei will conduct Tchaikovsky himself – and he insists on having  Anne-Marie Jacquet as his soloist. We see from the start that there is a ghost from the past linking Andrei, Anne-Marie and her over-protective agent, Guylene (Miou Miou) – but it takes almost two hours to finally unravel it.

the first third of the film, mostly set in Moscow, zips along entertainingly, with the rounding-up-of-the-musicians sequence providing some nice moments and some lively ” gypsi-ness.”

The word ‘Gypsy’ derives from ‘Egyptian, the same as the Spanish Gitano or the French Gitan. It emerged in Europe, in the 15th century, after their migration into the land of the Romani people (or Roma) in that continent.

They received this name from the local people either because they spread in Europe from an area named Little Egypt, in the Southern Balkans or because they fit the European image of dark-skinned Egyptians skilled in witchcraft. When they first arrived at numerous places in Europe they claimed to be from Egypt, and required to travel for seven years as penance for apostacy.

Around the ninety-minute mark, though, Andrei finally lifts the baton and the concert begins. From here on in The Concert is pure weepie pleasure – and a brilliant, old-fashioned lesson in how a piece of music can be used cinematically to carry and mold an audience’s emotions.

And through the power of the universal sound of music tuned coincidentally or not into a Tchaikovsky composition, the fate of Anne Marie’s past is at last instinctively unraveled.

And looking around while she’s playing in front of a crowed room,  at the intense expression of these peculiar and un-traditional musicians who have brilliantly aligned as per enchantment in a complete harmony to her solo violin representing one of the world’s most legendary orchestras,  she finally realizes in a climax of her true origins, briefly reflected in the momentum like a glimpse of light standing out from a dense darkness coming from afar.

Back home before just before dinner time , I stroll once more around my parent’s rooms…  A large book on  the Persian poet Omar Kahayyam is quite inviting,  and at this moment like Anne Marie Jaquet, I still seek for inspiration…

Very carefully not to damage the beautiful ceramic Art Deco vase, I lift the heavy book and lay it on top of an old Sirian mother-of- pearl inlay commode where a picture of my maternal grand-mother Sara from Izmir portrays her holding proudly a baby , me, in her arms  few weeks after I was born.

And like the sound of a cello from this afternoon ,  still vivid in my mind,  I read from the poet a quote that accidentally falls under my eyes .

My gaze then travels to the  bright light of the Shabbat candles , like a violin , a piano or a tambourine, they evoke the original melody from a distant land… the journey is the one through  the hidden DNA of my own soul.

Shabbat Shalom

Joelle’s Tips:

The Film: Le Concert by  Radu Mihaileanu – Watch the trailer

Photos courtesy: Guy Ferrandis © 2009 – Les Productions du Trésor

January 1, 2010 : comment

“ Bonne anne a tous . Je voudrais commenecer cette annee en dediant ma premiere pensee a ma fille, Joelle que j’ai la chance d’avoir parmis nous en ce debut d’anee. Pourquoi  Elle ecrit de si beaux articles en sublimant personnages, lieux de beaute et de reves , qui mieux que sa maman pour s’ ocuper d elle. Qui de vous n’as pas reve en voyant les images somptueses, en lisant ses textes amusants et inhabituels. Qui de nous n’est pas sorti de son quotidien en voyageant a Venise, Prague, Capri et Naples? Sa reussite est du a son grand coeur. Elle donne a tout le monde avec generosite , spontaneite, et beacaup d’amour. Puisse-t -elle continuer dans la vie comme dans ce quel fait avec bonheur et serenite. Amen. ”

Jaqueline Maslaton

“We have tried to design a transparent building in the sense that we are not hiding what is happening behind the surface of the structure.”

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa

The New Museum, the first major art museum to be constructed in downtown Manhattan in the city’s modern history.It is located on the Bowery on what was an 8,000 square foot parking lot and is New York’s only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art.

Unlike MoMA or the Whitney, the New Museum is truly contemporary and is not suffering from an identity crisis. Designed by cutting-edge, Tokyo-based architects Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA it opened on December 2007.

The seven-story composition – a stack of rectangular boxes shifted off axis in different directions, clad in silvery galvanized, zinc-plated steel, and punctuated by skylights and windows offering vistas and vignettes of the city -

They have designed a breathtaking facility that feature beautifully proportioned galleries, a theater, an education floor, a New Museum Store, a café, a top floor event space with roof terraces, and more.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art occupy its own freestanding, dedicated building for the first time in the institution’s history and will be the first art museum ever built from the ground up in downtown Manhattan.

The building’s form was conceived to express the ever-changing dynamic of the art and ideas to be presented within. Dramatic full floor, column-free exhibition spaces  occupy three main gallery levels.

The broad, light-washed ground floor space — named the Marcia Tucker Hall in honor of the New Museum’s late founder — is an animated public space where visitors will find the Museum’s acclaimed store

These features and spaces will provide a platform for the Museum’s far-reaching international programs, including exhibitions, installations, live presentations and performances, public education programs, and a highly original new global institutional partnership initiative, Museum as Hub.

At night, the building’s metallic exterior will be washed with artificial lighting from within.
Summarizing their approach to the design for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, SANAA has said:

“The solution emerged through an extensive period of trial and error. We made numerous study models based upon the New Museum’s program and the demands of the site, the zoning envelope. First we arrived at the notion of the boxes themselves; each one represents a specific piece of the program developed by the Museum.

Then we tried shifting the boxes to render the inside of the building more accommodating and open, with more possibilities for daylight to enter spaces and views to appear at various points in the interiors.

We designed the building from the inside out, based upon our understanding of the Museum’s needs.

Because of the kind of art the Museum shows and the curatorial approach they take, we wanted to design simple spaces – spaces without columns and with a lot of possibilities for different configurations, for placement of temporary dividing walls, and so forth – that would provide the widest range of options.

We do not believe that a building should overwhelm or compete with the art presented within it, particularly when it comes to contemporary art.  So we have tried to make spaces that are inviting but straightforward.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The Museum: New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 / 212.219.1222
New York, NY 10002

The Architects: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA LTD.
The Associate architects: Guggenheimer Architects, New York
The Project architect: Florian Idenburg
The Structural engineer: Guy Nordenson

The Main Photo:  photo of SANAA architect Kazuyo Sejima by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue (via Curbed). She’s holding a model of the building in her palm of her hand .

The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district.

No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 in worked partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park  when the historic structure was under threat of demolition and created the public landscape with guidance from a diverse community of High Line supporters.

The High Line ,designed by an architectural team from Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is meant to offer a retreat from street life, a bucolic space floating 30 feet in the air with Hudson River views. Yet it will retain many elements of its gritty past: graffiti is prevalent on the buildings it winds through, and some of the rails have been restored in the park. That the park — which grew from an idea hatched in the 1990s into a $170 million project — exists at all is a marvel.

The project gained the City’s support in 2002. Much of the designers’ work has been devoted to seeking a balance between preserving what one called “the romance of the ruin” — wild grasses growing up through the metal skeleton of rails and rivets — and creating a fresh green corridor for pedestrians.

The High Line south of 30th Street was donated to the City by CSX Transportation Inc. in 2005. Condominiums, hotels and office buildings designed by architectural talent like Jean Nouvel, Annabelle Selldorf, Renzo Piano, and the Della Valle Bernheimer firm are sprouting along the park’s span.

André Balazs’s 18-story Standard Hotel, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, is the only new building that rises directly over the elevated park. The towering structure is supported on massive concrete pillars, while a ground-floor restaurant and garden cafe are tucked underneath the High Line’s hefty steel frame.

Construction on the park began in 2006. The first portion of the three-section High Line, which runs near the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, is  open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are entrances at Gansevoort Street (stairs) and at 16th Street (elevator); exits are located every few blocks.

The second phase, which extends to 30th Street, is under construction and expected to be completed by fall 2010. The third phase, up to 34th Street, has yet to be approved.The project has already transformed the area near its 22-block stretch near the river, prompting some of the most ambitious development in the city in years. The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, according to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, $44 million of which was raised by Friends of the High Line, the group that led the project.

The High Line runs through three of Manhattan’s most dynamic neighborhoods: the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton. When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences.

The Meatpacking District

Much of the first section of the High Line is located in the Meatpacking District. Around 1900, the district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing

When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses. Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences. Around 1900, the meatpacking district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses.

Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing. When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories.

Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

In 2003, following a community-led effort, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission established the Gansevoort Market Historic District in recognition of the neighborhood’s historical importance.

The corner of Gansevoort Street and Washington Street, at the High Line’s southern end, is the future location of a new Whitney Museum of American Art facility. Pre-construction has begun on the site, and the facility is currently projected to open in 2012. Visit the Whitney’s Web site for more information.

West Chelsea

To the north of the Meatpacking District is the neighborhood of West Chelsea, where the majority of the High Line is located. West Chelsea shares the industrial past of the Meatpacking District, with large factories and warehouses lining its streets and avenues. West Chelsea is now home to the world’s largest concentration of art galleries.

In 2005, much of West Chelsea was rezoned by the Department of City Planning, to allow for the High Line’s reuse, to encourage the continued use of former industrial spaces as art galleries, and to encourage economic growth through residential development along Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.

Much of Chelsea was, and continues to be, residential; its tree-lined blocks of historic townhouses earned part of it designation as the Chelsea Historic District in 1970, with an extension added in 1981.

The creation of another Historic District, in West Chelsea, was recently approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. This District focuses on the industrial history of the neighborhood, and includes many historically and architecturally significant factory and warehouse buildings.

Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen

The High Line’s northernmost section runs through the southern section of the Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Much of this neighborhood was part of the 2005 Hudson Yards Rezoning, which was meant to encourage large-scale development and the improvement of transportation infrastructure.

In the next decade or so, this neighborhood will likely undergo significant changes to its built environment.

High-lining- Fashion Statements

According Bill Cunningham on a covaerage for the New York Times the High Line fashion message is of the future.

30 feet above the ground and through the buildings you can witness the most interesting and cool downtown fashion promenade. Unlike Fifth and Park Avenue the fashion belongs to the art  and downtown crowd.

Sportswear, minimalistic dresses  short and long over the ground and not overly expensive reflecting the look of the of Meat Packing District shops are all seen at the High Line .

But as mesmerizing as the design is, it is the height of the High Line that makes it so magical, and that has such a profound effect on how you view the city.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Suspended Park: The High Line

Photo Credits: Joelle Lifestyle / The High Line Flikr Pool

Source: The New York Time : The High Line

After eye inaugurating their first three locations (Portland, Seattle, and Palm Springs) from a far, I  was psyched to learn ACE Hotel was finally opening an east coast locale in New York City. I got the chance to check out the newly opened location in Manhattan a few weeks back, click through for impressions and as always a hefty dose of pics.

Located on 20 West 29th St, the new Manhattan ACE Hotel is a sight to behold from the inside, but easy to miss on the outside.  The entrance is  dark and reminiscent of a men’s club Hemingway may have been part of, the beginning of a decidedly masculine vibed hotel.

There’s a bar, reading areas, bookshelves lined with antique books, vintage steel furniture, even a stuffed Badger.

Digging thing that springs to mind — nor is the area around 29th Street and Broadway. So the lobby of the recently opened Ace Hotel came as a pleasant surprise. The latest effort by the Northwest-based proprietors of hip yet reasonably priced lodgings (and its first on the East Coast) was designed by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of the New York firm Roman and Williams, who turned a decrepit landmark 1904 building that formerly housed the Hotel Breslin into a haven of too-cool-for-school bohemian chic.

The 18-foot-high lobby space, with its original mosaic tile floor and carved plaster ceiling, embodies what Standefer calls “the anti-boutique hotel concept.” She and Alesch were looking for that sense of familiarity common to old hotels in Europe, where you feel as if you’re sitting in someone’s living room. A comfortable clutter of found objects — “New furniture wouldn’t be familiar enough,” Standefer said — fills the space, from stuffed birds to old laboratory tables to bachelor-pad sectional seating and plaid wing chairs.

Atop an old bookcase, a tray holds a raft of mercury glass flasks; a large blackboard at the back of the room broadcasts the cocktails du jour in the bar area. There are magazines and newspapers for browsing, and the occasional appearance of one of the old hotel’s residents (it used to be an SRO, and some people refused to move) gives the room a down-to-earth, communal vibe. And the wall behind the staircase is home to an installation by the artist Michael Anderson, who copied his collection of 20 years’ worth of graffiti tags and turned them into a graphic black-and-white collage.

Roman and Williams (who did the redesign of the Royalton as well as the interiors of the Standard Hotel and its restaurant, the Standard Grill) are currently at work on two other spaces in the Ace — a restaurant called the Breslin, which will be run by the Spotted Pig’s Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield, and a branch of Portland’s Stumptown Coffee (for which the designers chose a 1960s Milanese look). When both open in the fall, this still-scruffy neighborhood won’t know what hit it.

On one of their deluxe rooms, I was floored with the attention to detail. King size bed draped with a Pendleton blanket, desk with leather blotter, pencil and Weber sharpener (old school), beautiful ACE hotel stationary, and even a record player with a half dozen vinyls to choose from.

On top of a small school desk, the survival kit guide written in old typing machine fonts, starts like this:” Welcome to the Ace Hotel New York. I keep this short so you have more time to experience the hotel and the city. You’re in a historic landmark building that originally opened in 1904 as the Hotel Bresling.

It has undergone many changes in its long life. We have tried to preserve as many features as possible, like the ornate coffered ceilings  … Be adventurous take the subway it will take you down to Soho, Union Square or Chinatown….. If something doesn’t work properly tell us we know how to fix it  We are happy you are here… Thank you for sleeping with us Cheers .. all of us of Ace Hotel New York”

Even the bathroom was finished in subway tile, and the shower had a fantastic shower head (a much overlooked detail). Did I mention the old school ice box even stocked the High Life?

With every corner and detail uncovered, I found myself nodding thinking, “that would look great in my dream loft apt.” Of course, that was the purpose behind the hotel designers who have turned this early 19th century building into hotel  you could have only designed in your imagination.

ACE Hotel NYC continues to drop the exclusives on their staff. Kinda makes you want to work there just to get access to the collaboration goods. “The staff at the Portland Ace have worn Jack Purcell shoes since its debut, and for NYC, Ace is partnering with Converse on special Chuck Taylor All Star shoes. An American icon, Converse is indelibly linked with the independent spirit and attitude of countless musicians, artists and athletes. Simple, understated, synonymous with rock & roll and coveted by all walks of life, we think Converse is a perfect fit for Ace.”

It’s hard to describe cool with words, but when you stay at the ACE Hotel in Manhattan you just know. The pics should do the rest of the talking.

Joelle’s Tips

Photo credits: Graffiti mural: Photo: Douglas Lyle Thompson / Room : courtesy of Ace Hotel / Collage and source : T magazine- ‘ Study Hall – The Ace Hotel Lobby”  by Pilar Viladas

Many were the people that traumatized decided to leave the crowded Metropolis known as the fascinating Gotham City, to live in calmer and less threatened sites.

In order to heal this psychological depressive factor, restore trust in the market and help developers,  certain zoning regulations were altered by the commissary office of the buildings department allowing new construction models to take place. Among them, the so called : ” Mixed Use Buildings” .

I decide to go on an expedition into the city  newest ” architectural monsters “  all  of  them of extreme vanguard  and some , still in construction.  In the company of  the Israeli architect Avi Oster who offered to be my personal guide and  architectural consultant, my inseparable Cannon G9 camera  in my hand, I start my itinerary at 8th street Downtown East . I am also ready to feature for Marcel Steiner’s  well-known Brazilian on- line review ” Olho Magico“ , a glorious article on the New Architecture in Manhattan.

While walking on a beautiful day, under a hot sun and a clear blue sky, Avi tells me that in the city , common minimum lots are between 18 and 25 feet, a very limited space for an architect’s dream to take place. In these circumstances he adds, the new laws allowed  to take the maximum advantage of the those limited spaces accommodating both residential and commercial needs in unique building, offering thus new opportunities for both builders and inhabitants.

Moreover,  the International architectural elite was called into the city to compete with the local architects starting with the Valencian Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer  Santiago Calatrava responsible  today for the idealization and creation of the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, icon of the American financial success.This overall effort  has the intention to rejuvenate the city with a new vital energy establishing a fresh creativity in the sector of lifestyle and modern living habitat.

Assisted , I have managed to pick 5 of these extraordinary buildings as my favorites as per Marcel ’s feature request. The selection  by the way, was not  difficult as I had been standing in front of exclusive jewels  all without a doubt among the world’ s most  innovative realized within the last four years.

New Academic Building for The Cooper Union

The new academic facility is conceived as a stacked vertical piazza, contained within a semi-transparent envelope that articulates the classroom and laboratory spaces. The vertical campus is organized around a central atrium that rises to the full height of the building.

This connective volume, spanned by sky bridges, opens up view corridors across Third Avenue to the Foundation Building. The interior space configuration encourages interconnection between the school’s Engineering, Art, and Architecture departments. All institutional amenities – including meeting rooms, social space, seminar rooms, wireless hubs, restrooms, and phones – are located in the fifth and eighth story sky lobbies that surround the atrium.

The skip-stop elevator system makes trips exclusively to the fifth and eighth floors, drawing occupants to use, and congregate on, the grand stair; in practice, 50% of people will use the stairs as their sole means of circulation.

The building’s physical and visual permeability helps integrate the college into its neighborhood. At street level, the transparent facade invites the neighborhood to observe and to take part in the intensity of activity contained within. Many of the public functions (including retail space and a lobby exhibition gallery) are located at ground level, and a second gallery and a 200-seat auditorium are easily accessible from the street.

The open , accessible building is exemplary as sustainable, energy-efficient architecture. The building will be the first green academic laboratory building in New York City. A steel-and-glass skin improves the building’s performance through control of daylight, energy use, and selective natural ventilation.

The double skin system allows for heightened performance and dynamic composition on several levels: the operable panels create a continually moving pattern, provide surface variety on the facade, reduce the influx of heat radiation during the summer, and give users control over their interior environment and views to the outside.

40 Bond Street

The building, designed by the eminent Swiss architects Herzog de Meuron, is an architectural masterpiece. It is a radical redesign of a traditional cast iron building with utterly unique apartments and townhouses (the first townhouses built in generations). Both have unprecedented, innovative and sophisticated layouts, details and finishes. But the true revolution is in the idea itself, not merely in the look. It is a contemporary luxury lifestyle with maximum pleasure and minimum bother.

In a historic neighborhood containing the most magnificent cast iron buildings in the world the team of Herzog & de Meuron, widely regarded as the world’s most innovative architects, have radically reinvented the cast iron building. They have created a landmark for the future and a new standard in luxury living by combining a classic idea with modern technology and materials. 40 Bond is an inspired building that will set new standards in its plan, in its materials and even in the way it captures and transforms light, reflecting new possibilities of glass and steel in harmony with life.

In the 19th century the historic cast iron buildings of downtown Manhattan revolutionized architecture. They combined classical architectural motifs with the latest engineering and technology advances to create elegant buildings filled with an unprecedented degree of natural light. These dramatically functional yet decorous commercial structures were the first step towards modernism. In the 20th century these buildings were transformed by pioneering artists into spacious homes and studios whose open plans transformed the style in which city dwellers live today.

One of the most salient features of 40 Bond is an elaborate sculptural gate of cast aluminum. This twenty-two foot high and one hundred forty foot long “Gaudíesque” sculptural gate separates the front private gardens of the townhouses from the street. Jacques Herzog said that “when we decided to do gates it was essential that they integrate with the New York street, we wanted to create something solid, rough and chaotic…so we began to experiment with New York City street graffiti which became the starting point of the design.

” The gates individualize the façade of the building but, at the same time, the graffiti inspired design blends the building into the neighborhood. This cast aluminum wall appears as a vast work of art (in fact it is produced by a foundry that manufactures artist sculptures), an abstract expressionist sculpture echoing Pollock, Kline and Dubuffet. Yet, it is elegantly functional and defines the façade by establishing a distinctive New York City graffiti inspired graphic motif echoed throughout the building.

Effortless Luxury Living is the essence of 40 Bond, a sophisticated new concept in urban living created by Ian Schrager. For the first time, it combines all the benefits of home ownership with the services, privileges and amenities of a unique world class, five-star hotel. This is something that has never before been offered in apartment living. It is a new way of living…a carefree and effortless one.

100 / 11 Avenue  ‘Vision Machine’

View of 100 11th Avenue in context along Manhattan’s far West Side. In 1987, maverick French architect Jean Nouvel burst onto the international scene with a new headquarters for the Arab World Institute in Paris, one of President François Mitterrand’s Grands Projets. With mechanized oculi and veils of glass and steel, the building was hailed as an unconventional masterpiece that encouraged people to not only accept modern architecture in a historic setting, but to be thrilled by it.

Over ensuing years Nouvel has woven art, history, cultural references and new building technologies into provocative architectural contrasts between inside and outside, intimacy and the urban network, and has become renowned as one of the most original designers of his generation. In conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Arab World Institute, construction has begun in New York City on Nouvel’s latest glass and steel landmark, a direct material and conceptual descendant of his Paris tour de force: 100 11th will be a 23-story tower described by its architect as “a vision machine” at the intersection of 19th Street and the West Side Highway, along the Hudson River in Manhattan.

The building’s gently curving curtain wall of different sized panes of colorless glass – each set in a unique angle and torque – will sheath one of the most meticulously customized, high performance residential addresses in the nation. This dazzling window pattern will frame splendid views from within the tower while producing an exterior texture that serves as a poetic analog for the vibrancy, density and changeability of New York City.

Nouvel describes 100 11th as “a vision machine,” with every angle and structural detail designed to create visual excitement. Approximately 1,650 different windowpanes comprise the most highly engineered and complex curtain wall ever constructed in New York City. The curtain wall of 100 11th captures daylight differently over the course of the day and the year. A surface that seems to brighten and go dark as if by computer program is, in fact,made dynamic by the movement of the Earth. These daily and seasonal changes will heighten your senses and foster a connection to nature.

The lobby is a dramatic transitional zone between the public life of the street outside and the privacy of individual homes in the tower above. Soft controlled lighting and dark monochromatic walls will create a theatrical but peaceful atmosphere that contrasts with the reflection and animation of the building’s exterior. Enormous punched windows provide views of the building’s tree-filled garden.

By raising the restaurant and other public functions of the ground floor to 4′ above grade and sculpting a concrete base, Nouvel has created a perfect balance between pedestrian activity and the lively atmosphere of interiors. Views from the sidewalk of the restaurant animate the street and further catalyze the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation located to allow for a broad variety of furniture configurations that take full advantage of the light and views.

The building’s pool is designed so that residents may swim comfortably indoors or outdoors, depending upon the weather. A portion of the pool is sheltered within the building’s structure, while the balance of its length extends into a landscaped outdoor space. A glass partition has been customized to enclose the indoor portion of the pool during winter months or inclement weather, so that the indoor portion remains fully operative and warm at all times.

Within a framework of glass, steel, and concrete, a six-story vertical garden blooms. From planting boxes built into the structure, trees soar upward and plants cascade down the walls, lending their scent to the atmosphere.

IAC/ InterActiveCorp

This $62 million, 10-story office building in Manhattan’s Chelsea District will serve as the East Coast headquarters of IAC/ InterActiveCorp, a prominent multi-media firm. Designed by renowned Architect Frank Ghery, the building is located between 18th and 19th Streets, across from the Chelsea Pier in Manhattan.

The gross area of the building is 550,000 square feet which includes retail space in the lower floors and typical office space above the 7th floor. The building is reminiscent of the boat sails on the adjacent Hudson River. The billowing exterior curtain wall was sculpted with a glass-façade to produce dramatic angles and spectacular views for the interior office spaces. DeSimone Consulting Engineers of New York City designed a gravity defying concrete frame with a typical 12-inch flat-plate concrete floor with spans up to 35 feet.

To accommodate this untraditional architectural design; the structural engineering office of Only two columns are truly vertical. All other columns have some degree of inclination—up to 25 degrees from vertical. The reinforced concrete shear walls in the core counteract the twisting effect of the columns to stabilize the structure. The floor slabs also include numerous openings which offer interior views of the building.

IAC is an electronic and new-media conglomerate that includes the Home Shopping Network and more than 60 Web-oriented brands, such as Ticketmaster, Expedia, Lending Tree, Citysearch, and Match.com. The new IAC Building’s dynamic form reflects the aggregation of these diversified brands under one roof.

The Iac building also utilizes the most advanced technological amenities, including the world’s largest high resolution video wall, ubiquitous WI-FI access and modular meeting spaces equipped with the high definition conferencing and customized internet access equipment.

STUDIOS Architecture’s interior design makes clever use of customized, 120-degree workstations that stretch out across the irregular floor plates, folding into the unusual spaces created by the building’s fluctuating envelope. Contrasting the ethereal palette of the curtain wall, STUDIOS punctuated the muted interior spaces with incidents of color, developing an eclectic aesthetic to suit the client.IAC is among a number of forces stoking the revitalization of the West Chelsea neighborhood. Opening up to its new neighbors, the ground floor of the IAC is a “living room” space for the community.

Galleries and nonprofit organizations host events in the lobby, which boasts one of the world’s largest HD-quality rear projection screens. Gehry may not have stamped his long-awaited signature onto the New York skyline, yet with IAC he has created a building that brings identity to a neighborhood in flux and to a corporation whose distinct entities can now function as a more effective conglomerate.

3W13

Finally the last stop. I am getting really tired of this expedition. I feel a little melancholic, possibly because I have worked non stop for more than 36 hours featuring these extraordinary architectural  marvels and the magic of this tour has soon come close to its end. I need to get re -freshened with something new, something different, something that still will surprise me, something that is already functioning and alive.

It’s already 10 o clock at night. Avi Oster is smiling, for some reason he knows he will provide with the surprise I need. And here it is. It’s called 3W13. Wow! Looking up to a very narrow incrustation building  between two others as small, illuminated from top to bottom. ” Is  there a party taking place  ? ” I ask.

Oster , laughing now , explains that his building signature is directly linked to a concept called  “Mood Street “. It’s basic principle consists in stimulating and elevate the senses of the individual passing by in the street, as well as of it’s inhabitants.

Through a sophisticated mechanism of  led illumination in different tones, war in the summer and cold in winter time,the facade illumination changes intensity through a system of LED  lights  controlled by a monitored panel, sensitive to heat and to the presence of street  pedestrian passing by the building.

Not happy  only  with the ” Mood Street ” concept, Avi Oster , created for 3w13 another interesting one : The ” Window into a Window” concept. Because of the residential laws of the building department windows must be enabled  to open at all times.  The 3W13 facade has two sorts of windows:  those that  will allow the building’s inhabitants  to integrate perfectly with the street life through a floor to ceiling view and  smaller windows frames  designed to fit right in the middle of the glass panels as to catch the moving reality like in a picture allowing full integration when open to breath  fresh air.

Fascinated with all the interesting concepts , I realize that Cristiano Cora, the  owner of the Cristiano Cora Studio a hair salon  in the 3W13 is in front of us talking to Oster looking  attentively at my poor thirsty hair. Oster,  author of the salon design explains that since today that most beauty salons are focused only on their sevices , his  goal in this project was  to explore a new approach to  the process of a women’ s transformation into the space. The challenge was to find elegant solutions through the use of  technology as a production line system and the language of minimalism, to achieve both cocooning and the incubation of the “hair form” itself.

Suggestive indirect light, the organic form, surrounding acoustics and the unlimited interactions of the structural elements of the space transform users to a dimension of infinite lightness of being.

I am not listening anymore. I am stopping right there. Gotham , it’s  lightness of being and  it’s new transformation into the  space  …..is what at the moment I want to focus  on while I get my hair scalp massaged from the past.

Joelle’s Tips:

The buildings:

New Academic Building for The Cooper Union

Design : 2004/2006

Costruction : 2006/2009

Arquitect:Tom Mayne of Morphosis

Type: Academic

Website: New Academic Building for The Cooper Union | Morphopedia | Morphosis Architects

40 Bond Street

Designer:  Jaques Herzok and Pierre de Meuron of Basel

Construction:2005/2008

Type: Residencial and Lifestyle Management

Website: 40 Bond Street

100 / 11 Avenue  ‘Vision Machine’

Designer: Jean Nouvel

Construction: 2206/2009

Type: Residencial Commrcial

Website: 100/11 Avenue ‘ Vision Machine’

3W13

Designer: Avi Oster

Construction:2006 /

Type: Residential Commercial

All my life I have been privileged to be around interior designers, starting with my mother , Jaqueline who worked for many years during the 1970s in Milan with renowned Italian architect Giorgio Pes.

In the same city were I was born, I practically grew up at the house of our neighbor, world renowned designer Mario Bellini, the creative brain behind companies like Olivetti, Cassina, Vitra International and  MoMa among others. In Brussels, Belgium where I moved with my family at the age of 16, I was constantly surrounded by my parents’ friends, who were very prominent antiques dealers and architects like Gisele Croes and Axel Vervoort

Later, I moved to Brazil.  For several long years I was busy with the construction of my first house, in Sao Paulo, whose inspiration I took from the organic house ‘ Falling Water ‘ by modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  The house was created by influential Brazilian architect Marcos Tomanick.

At that moment I was very passionate about collecting antiques. As a hobby I traveled worldwide, sourcing objects in the early morning, predawn antique and flea markets of London, Naples, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Buenos Aires.  I loved looking with such excitement for that special object that would give life to hundreds of others picked elsewhere worldwide.

Once my house was ready, I called one of my favorite designers in Paris at that time.  A French designer of Moroccan origins, Alberto Pinto’s enriching consultancy lead me to become an avid collector of 17th, 18th, and 19th Century European antiques and Oriental arts purchased from the most remarkable dealers in Paris (Renoncour and Galerie Chevalier), London (Ciancimino and Mallet), and New York ’s Kenshire Gallery among with others.

At the same time, for more than 15 years, I owned several home accessory and design stores in the style of the British Conran Shop with an ethnic touch when globalization came to the door in that part of the hemisphere.  I worked with several partners like Sig Bergamin and Beto Galvez, among the best architects and interior designers  in South America.

After becoming a financial engineer at the university of Solvey, my one and only sister turned to the New York School of Interior Design where she graduated recently, creating a partnership with an icon of classic elegance: Brazilian architect, interior designer, and my dear long-time friend, Joao Mansur.

The doorman calls me on the phone. “Miss, I have a package for you!” With a lovely inserted note, I carefully open the beautiful paper surrounding a magnificent black book with a gold engraved title -High Style- Wow, I love this!!!

There is a photograph of a charming couple, a man and a woman sitting on a leather beije modernist sofa. Both are dressed in black. She’s very blond, with an Hispanic look; he’s black, very handsome, with a posture of totally unmistakable elegance. Both gaze with a purposely enjoyed nonchalance borrowed from a strange stylish melange a la Hepburn and Connery.  “But…who are these guys?” I wonder, intrigued, turning the book’s pages nervously.

“We combine California Modern with Vintage Hollywood decadence.  We call this brand of mixing the old with the new; the modern and vintage Modage. Los Angeles, California has long been celebrated for its laid back yet luxurious lifestyle. We have been influenced by its heyday of cocktail parties and grand hotel gatherings but live in the modern world of sleek, clean lines and simple opulence.”

Forgetting I must leave my apartment for the afternoon, I decide to postpone my activities until tomorrow.  This is more important.  I carry on reading: “The Modage sensibility arises from the desire to take the clients back to a time when high living was an art form in itself, without sacrificing the sophisticated contribution of modern stylists.  Modage is the signature brand of High Style. Life is the occasion.  Enjoy it, celebrate it.”

Their showroom ‘ on La Cienega Boulevard opened in 2005.  At first, the intention was for it to be the place where they showcased their treasures.  Now it is a hub of designers sourcing for famous decorators, celebrities, hipsters and those of discerning taste from all walks of life.

Clients like Cameron Diaz and Beck drop by for something special.  Designers to the stars like Jonathan Adler, Nate Berkus, Kenneth Brown and Martyn Lawrence Bullord shop for perfect pieces with which to outfit their clients’ homes.  In the shop punches of bright colors like greens, light blues and pinks create interest against the traditional black-and-white palette.

Ron Woodson’s parents were part of the black bourgeoisie and art scene of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  His father was a jazz musician who worked with many greats such as Lena Horn, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, and Bobby Short, just to name a few.  The only child of tobacco and electric energy tycoon James Buchanan Duke, Doris Duke bought him his first Christian Dior suit and Ron wonders today why he still loves the feel of a well-made suit.

The rich heritage of his family gave him appreciation for all things beautiful and gave him the tools for developing a creative spirit very early in life.  With a college degree in finance, he decided he did not want to only use the right side of his brain so went back to school, attending UCLA’s Architecture and Interior Design program.

He began his professional career as an art consultant and custom framer and was an avid world furnishings collector.  He and Jamie Rummerfield met at a dinner hosted in his house and immediately shared their similar goals and design philosophies.  Soon after a dinner at Jamie’s house, they almost organically created the House of Design, their boutique.

Jamie Rummerfield was born in Long Beach, California in the 1970s.  Her parents were happy hippies, and her childhood was a long summer of love. Since she was a child, Jamie was encouraged to explore her creativity and follow her bliss.Salvatore, her grandfather was a very talented furniture craftsman from Boiano, Italy who instilled in Jamie an appreciation for good design.

Celia, her grandmother from Mexico, is a vivacious and stylish woman who comes from a whole family of jewelers. The epitome of high style, she wears the finest adornments and always has her hair styled, red lipstick and heels in place-rain or shine, no matter where she’s going. From her other grandma, Jamie inherited a collection of imported trinkets and furniture from the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Growing up, Jamie learned that it’s not about how much you spend, it’s about how you choose to see things-learning that beauty is to be seen in every experience and appreciated every one of its details.  The furniture, textiles, lighting and interiors of the late 60s and 70s Southern California influenced her aesthetic sensibilities, from her daddy’s colorful surfing ponchos surfboards and woven Mexican beach blankets to the rows of craftsman- and casita-style bungalows she saw as she rode through the city in their VW bus.

As an Interior Design graduate at Arizona State University, she moved back to the coast.  “Los Angeles has a rich history and its own special brand of nostalgia that brings me such joy – a place infused with a feeling that this is where dreams come true.”

Ron and Jamie meet at a moment where both are at growth stages with their own businesses.  With the common interest of opening a storefront to house interesting collections of home decor, they agreed to showcase and sell some “great stuff.” They ended up discovering an abandoned, run down beauty salon next to a high-end antique showroom and gallery they both frequented.Before long, the space was theirs and the House of Design moved in, white picket fence and all.

Inside the boutique -as in the book- you will find gorgeous individual furniture pieces surrounded by photo collages, wallpapers, objects and fabric swatches  A Dynamic, surprising, glamorous living spaces in some of Southern California’s hidden gems as well as its secrets to stylish living, whose basic philosophy stands on the fact that “you can live like a star no matter where you call home.”

It’s almost six o’clock in the evening. I didn’t realize I was sitting for several hours in my favorite small and comfy 1900s vintage light blue velvet upholstered armchair, near a window in my living room that faces Central Park in New York where I live now.

For several hours I California Dreamed in a magic carpet ride hosted by Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield. I enjoyed outdoor entertaining life in glorious weather and magic hours with friends, strolling along the beach near an enchanted 1920s Santa Monica bungalow, mining for gold, sharpening my eye in “road shops”, riding in convertible cars into Hollywood’s cinematic and dazzling way of life where style is a dictatorship influenced by a uniquely glamorous history worldwide.

I finally realize why I have become suddenly so tuned with this charming couple’s creations, joyful exuberance and philosophy. And what is their Philosophy after all?

As my colleague Sara Ruffin Costello, creative Director of Domino Magazine says, it’s the simple ” Pursuit of pleasure taken very seriously.” In Brazil we say: Sarava

This post is dedicated to Michele Safra . May the inspiration of beauty and elegance color her life at the occasion of her birthday.

Joelle’s Picks:

The Designers: Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield 724 N. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90069/ Tel + 1 310 659.3010 / Fax +1 310.650.3070

The “  Special for the Economy ” New Design Service  : crafted for catering  those design enthusiasts wanting to beautify their living space but don’t have large budget to do it. Five consulting meetings for us $5.000 with Ron, Jamie and their design staff for five days and also receive a free design book ‘ High Style”. Check the website for more details.

The online store: Wandrlust / The favorite wallpapers: Florence Broadhurst / The Blog: Wandrstylelife

The Photographer: Jonathan Shapiro for Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield- All rights reserved