Cranbrook House Dining room light that can shine up and down or both. (Probably a custom design by Eliel Saarinen) Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Archive for the ‘Found Objects’ Category
I Am Digging Through My “Inspiration Photos” Today & Feeling Inspired
Posted in Found Objects, Information, tagged Cranbrook, Eliel Saarinen, green building, lantern, lighting design, living architecture, plants, vines, W.T. Kirkman on June 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Mexico City Architecture
Posted in Found Objects, tagged color, mexico city, patterns on October 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Last year I spent a week in Mexico City with my aunt, a retired Mexican history professor. What an architectural treat! I’m finally getting a chance to share a few of the highlights.
Palacio de Bellas Artes- Inside this recently restored, golden-topped, art nouveau building are several spectacular murals by Diego Riviera
Casa de los Azulejos- This is the dining court inside a department store in the Centro Historico. The mural wraps around all sides of the light-filled courtyard. I don’t have a photo of the outside of the building, and old palace covered in blue and white tiles
Bold red-orange facade in Centro Historico
Another facade in the Centro Historico, this one a bit less flashy, but has a variety of artful details
Aunt Susan at the giant sundial at UNAM
Approaching the Biblioteca Central UNAM – This walkway seemed a bit out of scale, but the shade was nice
Biblioteca Central – UNAM – The Central Library at UNAM was built in 1948, a collaboration between artist and architect Juan O’Gorman, and Architects Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Martinez de Velasco. The exterior is covered in murals depicting the history of Mexico and made out of stones collected from around the country.
Around the Biblioteca Central was a grid of grass squares and concrete pathways that seemed like they could be a giant board for a game. The simple white painted arrows on some of the paths direct bikers properly through the maze.
Grid of lawn squares and concrete paths
The graphic simplicity of bike path through UNAM
Zona Rosa Art Deco Industrial
Zona Rosa greenery
Zona Rosa Glass and Steel
Fuente de la Diana Cazadora
Amber Dome- Museo de Arte Moderno de Mexico
Living Roof – Jardin Botanico, Chapultapec
National Museum of Anthropology Fountain Column
Marquee – Polanco
Mural and Fountain in Los Danzantes Coyoacan
Miami Beach 2009
Posted in Found Objects, Information, tagged Art Deco, Florida, historical styles, Miami Beach on July 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Remarkable Kitchen Lighting
Posted in Found Objects, tagged curiosities, humor, kitchen, lighting design, whimsy on January 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I saw this unique kitchen lighting solution in Baja recently while house shopping with a friend.
Blue Hardware
Posted in Found Objects, tagged color, details, houses, Oakland, whimsy on January 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Not long ago I was checking out a house in the Oakland hills that caught my client’s fancy – 
I’d call it rustic modern with a bit of whimsy. I like it. I also like that it was surrounded by trees and shrubs so that I had trouble getting a good photo of the whole building. I noticed one nice detail that is daring and unusual. 
If you look closely you will see that the post bases and the other structural connectors are blue! Here is a close up: 
Even closer:
Visit to Shawn Lovell’s blacksmith shop in Alameda
Posted in Found Objects, tagged blacksmith, botanical, curves, curvy, handrail, metal, whimsy on November 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Last week I visited these guys to check out their work. One of my clients needs a handrail.
Nice to see what an artist can do with traditional blacksmithing.
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- Looking into the Shop
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- Shawn demonstrating her process
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- Handrail stock
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- Handrail
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- Handrail
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- Handrail
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- Whimsical practice piece
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- Coal fired welding
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- Coal fired welding
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- Vine tips stair railing
A Few Architectural Highlights from Road Trip To Glacier National Park
Posted in Found Objects on August 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
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- Logs rolling down the highway in Oregon
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- Spokane romanesque brick
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- Grand livingroom at Many Glacier Lodge
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- Exterior of Many Glacier Lodge
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- Log cabin exterior
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- Cozy Interior of log cabin
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- Woven corner (Timber dovetail style corner)
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- W.T. Kirkman #2 “Champion” Cold Blast Lantern
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- Colorfully painted A-frame!
More cut-out pulls
Posted in Found Objects, tagged cut-out pulls, furniture, holes, utilitarian, value, whimsy on July 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Copper cladding in the morning light
Posted in Found Objects, tagged cladding, copper, details, holes, light, metal, patterns, skin on April 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The main entry to the de Young Museum in the late morning – If only we all could afford skins of copper in custom patterns.
Some Sacramento Architecture
Posted in Found Objects, tagged buildings on the water, color, form, pyramid on March 23, 2014| 1 Comment »
We took the train to Sacramento today to look around. In addition to nice trees, we saw some noteworthy buildings. Here are a few.
I think this one was a bank
This pyramid of warm yellow stone – a great shape for a building in a place where land isn’t too expensive. Every room gets a roof deck!
The entry to the Great Pyramid
Awesome new museum on the Sacramento River
feather weathervane on the roof, sailboats along the entry bridge
golden bridge 1935
Bricks
Posted in Found Objects, Information, tagged Aalto, Alvar Aalto, bricks, materials, patterns, whimsy on January 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
Aalto’s summer house, Muuratsalo, 1953 – brick experiments
I love bricks. The scale of a brick to fit in a human hand allows you to imagine the wall being built one brick at a time. I probably read that somewhere rather than invented it myself, but it’s right. Bricks can also create nice patterns. This photo is of a wall of Alvar Aalto’s summer house on Muuratsalo and maybe was a test palate for different brick options.
I looked up this project up in my one Aalto book, Alvar Aalto by Richard Weston, 1995. Weston has several pages on these “brick experiments”
“The brickwork is also painted white externally, while inside the courtyard the brick and tile experiments create a rich patchwork-quilt on the walls and floor, which suggest by turn De Stijl-like reliefs, or old walls with redundant door and window openings bricked up and patched over time. The experiments were as much aesthetic as technical: we are in the world of metaphor again , for what are these walls if not imitations of ‘ruins’ – past, or perhaps to come? Is this tiny piazzetta, the atrium of a Pompeian patrician’s dwelling, or the (de)relict room of a large, old house, which has lost its roof and been recolonized as a picturesque courtyard? All these possibilities come to mind: the image is too general to be pinned down to a specific interpretation – it would lapse into kitsch otherwise – and can still be contemplated simply as an abstract collage. Memories of Pompeiana probably played their part. As did those of Italian piazzas. I like to think Aalto intended the walls to be seen as the arch-empiricist’s ironic commentary on the fate of the strict geometric compositions then coming into favor in Finland under the influence of the arch -theorist Aulis Blomstedt, with his pythagorean fascination for number and proportion on the basis of beauty. ” Pg 119-121
There are several more paragraphs of discussion of the meaning of this brickwork in Weston’s book. I think I will let you read the book rather than transcribe it here.
Another Peculiar Addition
Posted in Found Objects, tagged additions, curiosities, houses, humor, Oakland, small addition, small buildings, tower, whimsy on December 4, 2013| 1 Comment »
My Oakland correspondent saw this curious tower addition on an Oakland bungalow. I’d love to see it from the inside.
Tower addition on Oakland bungalow
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