Architects and Artisans

Ah, the challenges and conundrums that bedevil the famous artist – even after his death. Take, for example, the Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn.  One of the most important painters in the history of European art, he lived and painted from 1606 to 1669, and came to be renowned for an uncanny ability to depict light and shadow [...]

Dwell magazine is now a coast-to-coast affair. On Tuesday evening, in a townhouse at 150 West 15th Street in Manhattan, the 10-year-old, San Francisco-based magazine announced the establishment of its offices and team now based in New York.  Leading the team is the magazine’s new publisher, Brenda Saget Darling, an alumna of Elle Décor, House & [...]

By Edward Keagle, AIA Like many architects of a certain age, I am sitting on a slide collection of innumerable images gleaned from many trips to architectural shrines and lesser destinations. I recently began to digitize some of these so I could more easily share them with colleagues and remind myself of old lessons. In [...]

Dan Gottlieb’s photography has been shaped by two life-changing events. Born with a hearing disability, his world as a child was largely self-invented.  He made things, including pictures, spaces and objects “I learned about the world using my eyes,” the director of planning and design at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) says.  “And [...]

There’s much more to the island of Cuba than the widespread images of barefoot children playing in the streets, laundry hanging in pathetic backyards, and dilapidated buildings crumbling from decades of neglect. And Michael Connors has the pictures to prove it. For the past five years, he’s been writing and collaborating on photography with Brent Winebrenner, and will publish [...]

When the founders of what’s now known as the Peabody Essex Museum (P.E.M.) in Salem, Mass. – ship owners and sea captains all – began to amass their collection of rare items from the seven seas in 1799, they also stockpiled the books and manuscripts that would help the world understand their holdings. “The East Indian [...]

So what’s an artist to do with a ten-foot-long, inflatable Beluga whale, anyway? For Ya Ya Chou, the answer is simple enough: Suspend it from a huge tree in Beverly Hills, create an artificial ocean below, and fill it with smaller baby Belugas swimming through the air. And make a statement. “The idea came from [...]

She takes her cues for terracotta tile designs from ancient paintings of Japanese kimono makers. “It’s based on the way the Japanese draped their kimono fabric, almost like on a quilt stand,” says Seattle-based Justyn Livingston.  “They’d mix stripes and dots, birds and flowers, checks, zigzags and waterfalls, mixing the patterns in the garment in [...]

Almost as quickly as it arrived and changed our world, it promptly disappeared. But with a new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, it’s time now to take a look back at postmodernism and its evolution from provocative architectural movement of the early 1970s – one that challenged the orthodoxies of modernism – [...]

Some call it the most coveted boutique hotel in Puerto Vallarta. The views alone might earn Hacienda San Angel that status.  It’s perched above terracotta rooftops and cobblestone streets, with views of Banderas Bay to the west and the the Sierra Madre mountain range to the east. Casa Bur-Sus, the core structure at the hacienda’s [...]