I’m a big fan of Alain de Botton‘s work and was thrilled when the women from Broodwork told me that he had agreed to be part of their Ideal Live/Work Space series over on Lifework. You can check out Alain’s words here. I love what he says about creativity and the writing process. Makes me want to go work at LAX although Santa Monica Library will probably suffice.
The Tim Olsen gallery in Sydney is hosting a show of Paul Davies architecturally inspired paintings. A lot of them are sold already but the work really sings and I am sure Tim would ship to the US if anything took your fancy!
Sam Crawford sent me through more pics of the Newtown terrace – such a great reno. Not too sure about this gallery app on wordpress though! If you click on the images you’ll get a much better feel for the fine details in this project.
I should also note that my lovely brother did the joinery on this project – check out Sam’s work at Square Peg Woodworks. He is a very fine joiner – as you can see from the pics below.
Sydney architect Sam Crawford has recently completed two renovations. The one above in Newtown looks amazing. There’s another one in Haberfield…I’ve asked for more pics!
Blogger extraordinaire Alissa Walker covered NYC – on foot – to produce City Walks Architecture: New York (published by Chronicle). Get the background on the book at Alissa’s blog Gelatobaby.
The AIA has awarded 20 small structures for their Small Projects Award. There’s a lot of words and only two images – rather lame. The image above is lovely but unlabeled on their site. If anyone knows whose work it is let me know!
Rochelle Kramer from SoCal Modern emailed me this morning with a great new listing – a Pierre Koenig for around $1.5m. It’s open for inspection on Sunday from 1-4.
The LA Times did a big story yesterday on architectural gems selling for a steal. I’ve been covering that story for a while (click here and here and here). They interviewed Crosby Doe, who often lists great houses and sold his first Neutra house in 1974. “I haven’t seen so many opportunities in terms of choice and relative value since the ’70s,” said Doe in the article. “Three years ago people would call me from all around the world and say, ‘I want a Lautner,’ and there were none available.”
The real estate section is one of the first places I go when the paper arrives on the weekend. Yesterday I found a Neutra house in Bel Air (above)…for $14.9 million. A lovely Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Banos for $2.3 million (below) and the Craig Ellwood house for $885,000 (bottom). $14m is not exactly cheap but perhaps if you are buying at that level it’s a bargain? The house is certainly amazing.
We spent the afternoon exploring the High Line in New York’s Meatpacking district a few weeks ago. I’d blogged about it before and was keen to see it in the flesh. The elevated rail line, built in the 1930s, has been turned it into a really charming city park – complete with wooden sun lounges that slide together over the old rail. I was impressed with the plantings – for a new garden they were very well established. James Corner Field Operations, with the consultation of planting designer Piet Oudolf, worked on the design and planting actually began last fall. I took a tonne of pics…check them out on Flickr.
Just back from the Getty Centre. The parents enjoyed it. I made up a treasure hunt for the kid with ice cream sandwiches as the treasure at the end (they had to find a bunch of paintings and sculptures)…so they loved it. I love being in those spaces. Meier got the scale of that place absolutely right. And they’ve got a good museum store. I do enjoy a museum store. The kid’s got to choose a poster each (see the choices below…can you guess which one my 3 year old daughter chose and which went to my 7 year old son?) Image above of stairs at the Getty from here.
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