Clean lines and a minimalist design aesthetic define Mid Century Style. The house set the tone for much of mid-century modern architecture by incorporating indoor and outdoor spaces. Mid-Century Modern explores the interior decor of this seminal decade, concentrating on all aspects of a home’s decoration-walls, flooring, surfaces, lighting, and, of course, furniture. (more…)
PACIFIC PALISADES has been a cool escape from Los Angeles noise, grit and heat ever since Sunset Boulevard was extended to reach the beach in the 1920s. It offered the ocean views of Malibu, the canyon hideaways of landlocked Hollywood Hills and a cloistered playground for Beverly Hills movie stars. The enclave, one of Southern California’s most treasured locales, also became a palette for pioneering architects who embraced the distinctive topography with experimental glass houses.
The Palisades, it can be said, shaped the houses, rather than the houses shaping the Palisades. After World War II, Richard Neutra, Charles Eames and other Case Study House designers landed in the woody bluffs here. (more…)
BOB BEITCHER says he and his wife, Carol, want their newly built home in Santa Monica to be a showcase of sustainable practices “without being granola-y, if you know what I mean.”
Their house off San Vicente Boulevard has been carefully designed by architect Warren Wagner to optimize solar energy and the use of recycled and renewable materials. Yet the modernist dwelling seems more about the panache of architectural possibilities than the virtuousness of green design.
(more…)
Second of two parts.
During the middle decades of the 20th century, St. Louis was home to a group of modernist architects who produced distinguished examples of private homes, social housing, offices, churches and other building types.
“There was an abundance of talent,” says Carolyn Toft, executive director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis. “Especially considering domestic architecture, this region really had something to crow about.”
Now that legacy, which stretches from the city to the outer limits of St. Louis County and beyond, is at risk of erasure. New values that are at heart old values have displaced modernism’s idealism, and clients and developers who don’t understand or appreciate the often intentionally modest structures demolish them without a second thought in order to erect swollen “McMansions.” (more…)
You could say that interior designer Katharine Pooley fell into her career by accident. In 2003, she took on the task of improving the interior of her family’s holiday home in Scotland as a personal project. The following year, she repeated the task when she bought and redecorated two upmarket holiday lets: one in Thailand and the other in Colorado, in America.
It was only when friends, family and holiday guests kept pestering her about where she had found the eclectic designer accessories and furniture she had used that Pooley decided to open an interior design shop in Chelsea, west London, in October 2004, and to set up a business carrying out refurbishment projects for wealthy clients. She won two design awards the following year, establishing her reputation. (more…)
