This apartment was designed as minimalist as possible without losing in comfort. The furniture and wall structure around the apartment is as minimal as possible but without losing in functionality. Internal partitions were demolished to maximize light penetration and provide open-plan living arrangement. Closets and other storage space is hided behind sliding doors. The integrated plant box positioned above cooking area strikes a line of green vegetation across the space. A small changing room serves the bath-shower wet room and contains a bespoke compact vanity unit. (more…)
It may have been an overexposure to early Frank Lloyd Wright, or perhaps too much time spent in boats, but when I was young, and until very recently, I was horrified by furniture. I always thought that a perfect domestic architecture would be heavy on the built-ins. Shelves, benches, various seats and berths—these were the things necessary to finish a space, to tune it for living, to show at least that the designer was not entirely ignorant of how and by whom a house would be used. Also to anchor it. An uncle of mine lived for many years in a very cool Anglo-built adobe in Taos, New Mexico. At the center of the main space was a large circular pit, dug out of the ground and contoured for sitting: a brutal sunken living room, it seemed so much more profound than the loose, impermanent wooden furniture orbiting all around it, sliding this way and that, imported things ready to take up any position, or be replaced. (more…)
It’s rare that I end up ahead of a trend, but that was the case six years ago when I embarked on a frustrating search for a particular sort of cabinet for a corner of my open kitchen/dining room.
What I needed was a place to serve guests drinks that wasn’t my kitchen counter. I envisioned a sort of hutch where I could stow liquor and wine bottles behind closed doors, and that also had shelves for glassware and a generous work surface for mixing a Cosmo, pouring some cabernet or parking an ice bucket. (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…)
DENVER — The exuberant, blossoming, titanium-clad museum designed by architect Daniel Libeskind is a brilliant container for art and a stunning work itself.
The Denver Art Museum’s new Frederic C. Hamilton Building opens Oct. 7, and has already achieved national prominence with attention from the likes of Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and The New York Times.
This project is the most important structure to open in the Mile High City since its predecessor, Gio Ponti’s original museum building, debuted 35 years ago. (more…)
