Roosevelt's Four Freedoms

In design, as in life, patience is a virtue. Plenty was required, to be sure, in the case of New York City’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. Progress on the presidential memorial located on Roosevelt Island and named for FDR’s 1941 State of the Union address halted shortly after its architect, Louis Kahn, completed the design in 1974, at which time financial turmoil crippled the city. Only following an unexpected resurgence of interest some 30 years later did Kahn’s final work regain momentum.












Domenique Mora has established herself as a leader in the industry through innovative designs and creative solutions. Her notable skills in conceptual designs has earned her a reputation as one of the premier Interior Architectural Designers. Her work has been featured in many residential showcases and industry publications.

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Hans Silvester Natural Fashion

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This magnificently produced book provides a priceless record of a unique and increasingly fragile way of life, one threatened by conflict, climate change and tourism.
The lower valley of the Omo, at the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, remains one of the wildest places in Africa. Over the course of numerous voyages to this forgotten land, Hans Silvester became fascinated by the beauty of the Surma and Mursi tribes, who share a taste for body painting and extravagant decorations borrowed from nature.
In this region of East Africa, the rivers that run through the dry savannahs are home to abundant flowers, papyrus and wild fruit trees, and this luxuriance becomes an invitation to creativity and spectacle. Within hand’s reach, a multitude of plants inspire fanciful and ephemeral self-decoration, and the Omo tribes react spontaneously: a leaf, root, seed pod or flower is quickly transformed into an accessory.
People create caps from tufts of grass or they ornament themselves with ba…
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Malene Birger Move and Work

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To redesign, rearrange and restyle favorite furniture or décor items into new spaces or even into a new room with a new purpose you will recognize some of Malene Birger pieces from life and work. Their strength is in their styling versatility and the ease with which she reinvents her space as she moves them from the desk to the bedroom, the bedside to the bathroom, the kitchen to the lounge, or a sympathetically renovated Finca to an Edwardian London flat, her favorite furniture travels everywhere like a faithful friend: From Denmark to Mallorca to London, some of the biggest pieces have now safely been returned to their roots in Copenhagen like treasured explorers to be reveled again another day. 
Malene Birger is the epitome of creativity, timelessness, and eclectic style. Whether as a fashion designer and founder of her brands, or as an interior designer, Birger's love for uncompromising design and traditional craftsmanship is in evidence everywhere. In her newest book, Move a…
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Aldo Rossi Architecture

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Aldo Rossi (born 1931), one of the most influential architects during the period 1972-1988, has accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in three distinct areas: theory, drawing, and architecture. In 1966 Aldo Rossi published the book The Architecture of the City, which subsequently was translated into several languages and enjoyed enormous international success. Spurning the then fashionable debates on style, Aldo Rossi instead criticized the lack of understanding of the city in current architectural practice. Aldo Rossi argued that a city must be studied and valued as something constructed over time; of particular interest are urban artifacts that with-stand the passage of time. Despite the modern movement polemics against monuments, for example. Aldo Rossi held that the city remembers its past and uses that memory through monuments; that is, monuments give structure to the city.






















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Ṗhotographer Helmut Newton

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Helmut Newton, a feckless, un-scholarly boy grew up to transform fashion photography.  Probably the most imitated and controversial fashion photographer of his time, Newton earned the nickname King of Kink as well as a fortune. “If a photographer says he is not a voyeur, he is an idiot,”  Newton once said.  His erotic and dream like images were like a peep through a key hole, spied moments of a heightened reality.
As a person, Newton was unsurprisingly complex. A bohemian and yet very pragmatic, he insisted that he was not an intellectual and did not stand for much. His sardonic humor, delight in mischief, and nonchalant sense of irony are obvious in his work. He considered America weird, exotic, and outrageous.  Though a slave to his own imagination, Newton claimed that his photographs were entirely based in reality.  He  was inspired by Film Noir, Expressionist Cinema, S & M and Surrealism. His many obsessions were rooted in his childhood, in the decadent, avant-garde capital t…
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Art Smith Jewelry

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Cuban-born, Brooklyn-raised Art Smith was one of the major modernist jewelers of the mid-twentieth century.  He attended Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art from 1942 to 1946 where he first pursued architectural studies but eventually abandoned them to concentrate on sculpture and the manipulation of three-dimensional forms. During the early 1940's he learned jewelry making while working part-time as a crafts supervisor at the Children’s Aid Society, and through a night course at New York University. He also worked for and was influenced by Winifred Mason, an African-American jewelry designer with a store in Greenwich Village.

In 1946, Smith opened his first store, also in Greenwich Village. Inspired by surrealism, biomorphism, and primitivism, Smith’s jewelry included large scale, asymmetrical forms made from hand-hammered elements of silver, copper, or brass, sometimes combined with quartz or other colorful stones.  His jewelry explored organic shapes and both p…
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Milan Salone del Mobile 2018 Corallo Fuorisalone Tramway

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Salone del Mobile, is the historic international furniture and design fair that is the largest and most prominent of its kind. Between Milan Salone Design installation exhibitions, collaborations, projects, numerous satellite fairs, launches, debuts, panels, parties, talks and more, it can be hard to fit it all into a blog which is why I am providing ongoing coverage of the best in Milan.  Keep your eye on my page for more posts and updates. 
Departure from Piazza Castello through the Brera district in a streetcar dressed for the occasion, plunged its passengers on a journey back in time. The historic traveling cinematographic tramway was designed with the charm of the twentieth century. This dream experience entitled "Corallo", is deeply rooted in the Milanese identity and its traditions.  The current reinterpretation was straight out of the imagination of the designer Cristina Celestino and her collaboration with renowned Italian houses.  Inspired by cultural venues and o…
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Le Corbusier Sculptures

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Fantastic sculptures from the one and only Charles-Edouard Jeannette, better known as Architect Le Corbusier.  Lightly more creative then his earlier projects, one can see parallels between him and Salvador Dali’s paintings in  Le Corbusier sculptures, even though it’s no secret that they weren’t the biggest fans of each other.

Regularly analyzing whether he liked purely functional and industrial products or if he liked one-of-a-kind handmade items, Le Corbusier reached a middle ground - a home that’s purely functional with industrial products to match its character.  For Le Corbusier, sculptures put his thoughts into perspective and inspired him to see the art side of things.  Le Corbusier found the balance between two elements and succeeded. 

Le Corbusier abandoned the idea of Purism in the 1950′s and began making more robust work, even his architecture turned from being lightweight into more of a heavier feel with splashes of bright colors.  He left concrete unfinished, wooden for…
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Photographer Ellen Von Unwerth

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Ellen Von Unwerth began her career in the fashion industry as a model herself before deciding to get on the other side of the lens. She gained credibility as a photographer in the '90s when her work for GUESS jeans became popular, shooting famous models like Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova, and the late Anna Nicole Smith. von Unwerth has continued building her reputation throughout the past two decades, doing work both for top publications and independently, while also creating album art and doing private shoots for many celebrities. Her name is now one of the largest in the fashion industry and synonymous with the photographic beauty of women. The following 100 are our favorite from her vast collection.






















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Milan Salone del Mobile 2018 Greenhouse For Tiffany & Co.

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Marilyn Minter and Other Artists Celebrate ‘Everyday Objects’ With Tiffany & Co. at Milan’s Salone del Mobile The luxury brand has created a line of premium objects, including a paper coffee cup rendered in bone china. 
Edition of Salon del Mobile, Milan’s premier design fair, the iconic jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. unveiled its home collection with five unique window installations by acclaimed artists Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons, Anna Galtarossa, Shantell Martin, and Anna-Wili Highfield. At the core of this presentation is the concept of the greenhouse—in this case, a beautifully wrought object d’art made of sterling silver, copper, and glass. The company’s artistic director, Reed Krakoff, explained in a statement that the romantic architectural form was chosen because it is the “perfect expression of Tiffany craftsmanship and a symbol of the power of creativity.”   The greenhouse setting  showcases Tiffany’s century-old legacy of elegant, high-quality American design. Kra…
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Sculptures of Ronald Bladen

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Allow yourself to be wooed by a modern master. Ronald Bladen is considered one of the fathers of minimalism, but he envisioned himself a romantic. This attitude was a successful attempt to avoid the trap of a pigeonhole.  His interest was in the dramatic effects that a sculpture could have on a viewer, his accomplishments are clear to anyone that approaches his striking monumental works. 


















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