Paring back to the essential
The architect John Pawson’s latest book is a wonderful discovery and an inspiration. Pawson is a master practitioner of identifying the essential, setting everything else aside and making the essential beautiful. Pawson elevates the everyday to something simple and rich with meaning. Mies van der Rohe pioneered this approach and called it beinahe nichts.
Cooking and and spending time with family are super important to us and its expression in our home is a priority.
What’s essential in your life?
Is there something–an activity or a pursuit–that you want to make a priority in your space?
How do you want to live?
John Pawson’s book Home Farm Cooking
#johnpawson #focus #kitchen #family #phaidon #lincolnparkchicago #winnetka #westtown #hydeparkchicago
The architect John Pawson’s latest book is a wonderful discovery and an inspiration. Pawson is a master practitioner of identifying the essential, setting everything else aside and making the essential beautiful. Pawson elevates the everyday to something simple and rich with meaning. Mies van der Rohe pioneered this approach and called it beinahe nichts.
Cooking and and spending time with family are super important to us and its expression in our home is a priority.
What’s essential in your life?
Is there something–an activity or a pursuit–that you want to make a priority in your space?
How do you want to live?
John Pawson’s book Home Farm Cooking
#johnpawson #focus #kitchen #family #phaidon #lincolnparkchicago #winnetka #westtown #hydeparkchicago
Feedback
I recently redesigned and supervised the construction of the parkway of the Mies van der Rohe high-rise building I call home. I did $20,000 worth of free work from getting the Dept of Forestry to sign off–our very nice, young, green and inexperienced landscape architects said it could not be done–to making sure the drawings were followed and no one got electrocuted. (Story for another time.) Another condo owner approached me, pointed at the new 20 inch tall, black powder coated, one by one inch, stainless steel bar stock fence and five foot wide flame-finish, absolute granite walkways and asked,
"Did you do this?"
"Why, yes." I replied.
"You think this is Mies?" He asked. His eyes grew wide and he turned red. He began to stutter–I never heard him stutter before.
"This, this, this, this...."
"This is IKEA."
I began to laugh inside. My first thought was to ask him what his unit looked like and inquire if there was there any contraband IKEA furniture in it. I designed my unit and everyone I share it with enjoys how I made a small space feel much larger, function better and fit like a glove.
"Ok"
I responded and I walked away so I could laugh out loud.
We all have emotional connections to places and spaces and I respect them but sometimes it can get a little over the top. I listen, consider it and I may not agree with but I take it all with stride. And sometimes it strikes me in the funny bone.
#lincolnparkchicago #mies #ikea
I recently redesigned and supervised the construction of the parkway of the Mies van der Rohe high-rise building I call home. I did $20,000 worth of free work from getting the Dept of Forestry to sign off–our very nice, young, green and inexperienced landscape architects said it could not be done–to making sure the drawings were followed and no one got electrocuted. (Story for another time.) Another condo owner approached me, pointed at the new 20 inch tall, black powder coated, one by one inch, stainless steel bar stock fence and five foot wide flame-finish, absolute granite walkways and asked,
"Did you do this?"
"Why, yes." I replied.
"You think this is Mies?" He asked. His eyes grew wide and he turned red. He began to stutter–I never heard him stutter before.
"This, this, this, this...."
"This is IKEA."
I began to laugh inside. My first thought was to ask him what his unit looked like and inquire if there was there any contraband IKEA furniture in it. I designed my unit and everyone I share it with enjoys how I made a small space feel much larger, function better and fit like a glove.
"Ok"
I responded and I walked away so I could laugh out loud.
We all have emotional connections to places and spaces and I respect them but sometimes it can get a little over the top. I listen, consider it and I may not agree with but I take it all with stride. And sometimes it strikes me in the funny bone.
#lincolnparkchicago #mies #ikea
Alignment
This is a word that means more than what meets the eye. It’s when your skills and expertise meet the opportunity to create something special and spectacular. There’s a depth and well of knowledge that gets brought to any design problem or permit issue that looks effortless or obvious after the fact but was only easy because of our 20 years of experience.
Here in the example the 2” tile above and to the left rests on pedestals outside and the 3/4” interior tile on the bottom right seated on a mud bed.
But what does it really accomplish?
It makes a small space look and feel larger and more spacious.
Alignment is never a given. It should never be assumed but opely discussed and spelled out by both parties. What’s professional to us exhibits the excellence illustrated here and that’s how we roll.
Concrete Collaborative
#lincolnparkchicago #mies #california #space #modernism #concrete_collaborative
This is a word that means more than what meets the eye. It’s when your skills and expertise meet the opportunity to create something special and spectacular. There’s a depth and well of knowledge that gets brought to any design problem or permit issue that looks effortless or obvious after the fact but was only easy because of our 20 years of experience.
Here in the example the 2” tile above and to the left rests on pedestals outside and the 3/4” interior tile on the bottom right seated on a mud bed.
But what does it really accomplish?
It makes a small space look and feel larger and more spacious.
Alignment is never a given. It should never be assumed but opely discussed and spelled out by both parties. What’s professional to us exhibits the excellence illustrated here and that’s how we roll.
Concrete Collaborative
#lincolnparkchicago #mies #california #space #modernism #concrete_collaborative
God is in the small details
The Pope-Leighy House, FL Wright creates a symphony of color, space and light in a mere 1200 sf. Here’s one trick which are now borrowing from the master. (OK we are stealing it from him.)
The bedroom is small and the closet has two bifold doors. They are NOT the same width and number of leaves. Typically there would be pair of leaves, each with two. Here, one has three leaves and the other one. Why?
Because it allows you to grab your coat or favorite jacket without opening the whole closet. That’s a win in a small space and something we will do in all of projects looking forward starting in our own home.
Pope-Leighy House
#lincolnparkchicago #flwright #smallspaces
The Pope-Leighy House, FL Wright creates a symphony of color, space and light in a mere 1200 sf. Here’s one trick which are now borrowing from the master. (OK we are stealing it from him.)
The bedroom is small and the closet has two bifold doors. They are NOT the same width and number of leaves. Typically there would be pair of leaves, each with two. Here, one has three leaves and the other one. Why?
Because it allows you to grab your coat or favorite jacket without opening the whole closet. That’s a win in a small space and something we will do in all of projects looking forward starting in our own home.
Pope-Leighy House
#lincolnparkchicago #flwright #smallspaces
Art, Architecture and the Human Figure
The English caricature artist Jonathan Cusick draws with a wit and superb technical ability that make his work fun, beautiful and contagious with delight.
Here Cusick draws the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe appearing like a genie from his Barcelona Chair.
Mies believed that furniture should fit the body and it was a discipline with its own set of rules and was distinct from architecture. By comparison, FL Wright believed that Furniture and Architecture were the same discipline. For instance, Wright’s dining room table and the chairs with their vertical slats were not so much a place to comfortably eat but the chair backs were a vertical screen that created a volume over the flat horizontal plane that is the table top. Being seated in FL Wright chair in a FL Wright dining room is being committed to the architecture in a not very comfortable way. The chairs do not fit the body like Mies’s Brno chairs do. Something to think about.
Jonathan Cusick’s website
#jonathancusick #caricature #barcelonachair #madelonvreisendorp #moma #peterpalumbo #dirklohan #miesvanderrohe #lincolnparkchicago #winnetka #westtown #hydeparkchicago #farnsworthhouse
The English caricature artist Jonathan Cusick draws with a wit and superb technical ability that make his work fun, beautiful and contagious with delight.
Here Cusick draws the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe appearing like a genie from his Barcelona Chair.
Mies believed that furniture should fit the body and it was a discipline with its own set of rules and was distinct from architecture. By comparison, FL Wright believed that Furniture and Architecture were the same discipline. For instance, Wright’s dining room table and the chairs with their vertical slats were not so much a place to comfortably eat but the chair backs were a vertical screen that created a volume over the flat horizontal plane that is the table top. Being seated in FL Wright chair in a FL Wright dining room is being committed to the architecture in a not very comfortable way. The chairs do not fit the body like Mies’s Brno chairs do. Something to think about.
Jonathan Cusick’s website
#jonathancusick #caricature #barcelonachair #madelonvreisendorp #moma #peterpalumbo #dirklohan #miesvanderrohe #lincolnparkchicago #winnetka #westtown #hydeparkchicago #farnsworthhouse