Liberty Print Wellies

Ages ago, I wrote about the fun Tamara Henriques Wellington boots, and now that we’re being hit with the remnants of Hurricane Ida, good wellie boots are in order.  Luckily, I got an e-mail from Liberty saying that they’re now selling wellies with two of their distinctive prints on them.

You can get them in either the Bourton style or the classic Caesar print. Which do you like best?

The Hallway: Part VIII

In my never-ending quest for the perfect colour for the hallway, I am still hunting. My dear new friend Christopher, gave me a copy of the Farrow & Ball colour brochure, which is incredible. As wonderful as the variety of shades are, their names and descriptions are even better. Who wouldn’t want a hallway painted Elephant’s Breath, or a dresser painted Mouse’s Back?  I am sure that people would say that I can be Churlish Green, but really, I think that Dead Salmon. The shades of String, Cord and Matchstick are so evocative of an old English Country House, while French Gray and Vert de Terre call to mind the French countryside. As much as I’d love to use F&B paint, I don’t think our Estate Manager would be able to deal with paying that kind of money for a gallon of paint. Too bad.

What’s your favourite F&B paint name?

***UPDATE: As much as I love the yellows, there are psychological studies that show that people fight more in yellow rooms than in any other colour. Because the children here have mental and behavioural issues, yellow has been taken out of the running. Too bad, because there are so many great shades.***

Royal Copenhagen Sale

You KNOW that I love my Royal Copenhagen Blue Fluted Half Lace china and my White Half Lace pieces that I was given last year. So I was thrilled to see that Royal Copenhagen is having a “friends and family” sale in New York next month. I may just have to Bolt up there and see what they have.It’s a pretty amazing sale with up to 70% off of their samples, discontinued pieces and unboxed merchandise. If you’ve ever priced Royal Copenhagen, this brings it down to a somewhat reasonable cost. Here’s something pretty amazing: The brushes used by the Royal Copenhagen porcelain painters are made from the hairs at the tip of a cow’s ears or alternatively the hairs from a reindeer’s stomach. The sale is November 2nd to 6th, from 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at 41 Madison Avenue, Third Floor, New York City. 212.532.5051. Cash and cheques only. They ask that you be green and bring your own shopping bag.

A Lecture: When Buildings Try Too Hard

Icon (n) An important and enduring symbol.

I attended a lecture sponsored by the Baltimore Architecture Foundation, entitled “Buildings That Try Too Hard”. The speaker was Witold Rybczynski, the architecture critic for Slate magazine, author of more than fifty articles and papers on the subject of housing, architecture, and technology in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. So, he’s got some credentials!The main take-away point is that the public chooses what’s an icon, not the architect or the client. They are buildings which have a meaning beyond their original purpose, a symbolism. Today, so many clients are asking for an iconic building, but many fail miserably. Generally, a new apartment building is not an icon.

The lecture was divided into four parts: Icons, Instant Icons, Failed Icons and Anti-Icons.

Some of the icons were the Eiffel Tower which was built as a temporary structure, the Empire State Building, long the tallest building in the US, and the Washington Monument. Often these structures were not successful when first built, but gained a stature over the years. One question to ask about an icon is “Can you get the building in salt & pepper shaker form?”.Instant icons are buildings that are purpose built to become an icon. Many times, there is a competition for the building and the most outrageous is selected. Think about the Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the recent Beijing Olympic Stadium. For both Sydney and Bilbao, the buildings basically put these cities on the map. Failed Icons are buildings that really illustrate the point of trying too hard. The client figures that the Bilbao Guggenheim attracts millions of visitors, so if we do a titanium-skinned building, with all sorts of swoops and angles, then the visitors will come flocking to the space. Some of the examples of failures are the Millennium Dome in London, the Denver Art Museum, with all of it’s angled walls which are bad for hanging art! Anti-icons are buildings that are simple, classic and fully serving the purpose for which they were built. They function as they should, they are not full of jarring elements and pretensions and will continue to look timeless through the ages. Some of these include Seiji Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, The Sainsbury Center in Norwich, England and The Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas.What are your iconic buildings, and what are the ones that you consider failed icons?