Architects and Artisans

It’s time for architects and landscape architects to call a truce, says Raleigh’s Frank Harmon, and begin to enjoy the fruits of what can be a very generous and rewarding collaboration. “Where to place a building on a site is the single-most important decision in any design work,” the architect says.  “We should be working together [...]

Architectural historian Ellen Weiss is on a mission. The retired professor from Tulane’s school of architecture is out to resuscitate the reputation of Robert R. Taylor. He was not only the first academically trained African American architect, but also the first of his race to graduate from M.I.T. With Booker T. Washington, he would transform [...]

Between 1912 and 1913 the Roycrofters, a group of artisans led by Elbert Hubbard in East Aurora, N.Y., produced hand-hewn Arts & Crafts furnishings for the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C. Copper lighting fixtures for the Inn’s Great Hall, massive oak breakfronts and corner cabinets for its dining room, as well as three clocks [...]

The latest victim of the Great Recession’s gut-wrenching freefall is now on the block. Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood home in Oak Park, Ill. – the place where he lived, rebelled and wrote from age seven to 17 – has been listed for sale at a ridiculously low $525,000. That’s a modest $5,000 more than the Ernest [...]

When 17-year-old George Vanderbilt, youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, traveled to England in 1880 with his mother and father, one stop that was de rigueur was at Holland House in Kensington, just outside London. There, American financier and railroad tycoon James McHenry would give the lad at tour of the home owned by Lord and Lady Holland.  [...]

These days we usually turn to the Cato Institute, the Brookings Institution or the Pew Research Center when trying to validate a particular point of view. But back in 1880, before radio, television or (gulp!) the Internet, there really was only one such matrix for modern ideas. It was based outside of London, and it tracked [...]

The inspiration for BIG/Bjarke Ingels Group’s design for the new Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah arose from urban context, historic precedent and a tradition of stacked timber construction. “It was a balancing act between making it contextual and iconic,” says project leader Leon Rost.  “We wanted to create a landmark building, one with [...]

There’s a story, says artist Sigal Sasson, behind everything she does. She works in oil, pen & ink, graphite and watercolor, then translates her visions into 6’ x 9’ or 8’ x 10’ custom carpets. Each carpet is made to order, and customizable by size and shape if the client wants. But each is based [...]

Jarvis Wilcox fell into painting in a serendipitous way. An art history student at Columbia some years back, he was accosted by a fellow on the street. ”He wanted me to be a model in his art class,” he says. “I told him I wasn’t broke and I wasn’t a narcissist.” But Arthur Stern persisted.  And [...]

Tonight, in a private gala at the New York Public Library, designed by Colin Cowie and hosted by actress Sigourney Weaver, a live auction will feature ten lots of Kazakstan jewelry, along with one-of-a-kind jewelry created for the event by some of the world’s most renowned jewelry houses including Chopard and Jacob & Co.  It’s part of [...]