marcio kogan i love you.

via contemporist

ahh, another marcio kogan (the website is rad) house. again with the love. just had to share. i've got a burgeoning love for these contemporary brazilian architects.

love of books and coffee.

via contemporist

two of my loves come together in one place: books and coffee. this is the new interior of d'espresso's madison avenue location in nyc by nema workshop. they took the idea of a library and turned it on its side. at first i had a shot of vertigo or something like it, but the more i looked at it, the more i wanted not only to go there and get some coffee, but feel purposely disoriented. nothing like being in a sideways room to wake you up in the morning! who needs caffeine? next time i'm in nyc, i'd like to scope this place out.

london house extensions.

via contemporist

this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that i have stumbled across a wickedly cool addition to the back of a london home. you know, the georgian, or in this case edwardian townhouses in london that are usually two or three stories high with a reasonable number of bedrooms, connected to others in rows of townhouses that all look relatively the same. they have amazingly quaint little back yard spaces, usually, which i find the grey brick really complements (i've studied plenty of these houses from railroad tracks -- let me tell you!).

what i love is when, in these conservation areas (meaning things need to be maintained or usually built to look like they did during the time period they were established in the first place -- so in this case, all the houses -- i'm assuming at street view -- need to look edwardian) when the back yard is the place for an extra modern twist. this is an addition, not even just a remodel in the kitchen or something. it's by paul mcaneary architects (when you go to the page, this addition is the first image you see!), and is located in hammersmith, london. the light is splendid, and i love the way it really reaches out into the back garden space, bringing nature up close and personal with the room.

it's perfectly quaint and gorgeous. and not just because it's in england! ;)

afar magazine.

i just discovered afar magazine, a relatively new magazine (premier issue pictured above) by founders greg sullivan and joe diaz. my dad had the first anniversary (september/october 2010) copy that he let me peruse, and let's just say it tapped into my wanderlust a little. i really love how the concept is to travel "experientially." is that even a word? ;)

there really is something to that idea -- it's so easy to travel very far from home and feel altogether as if you've only driven down the street. the same restaurants pock the corners, the same cars zoom past on the roads. english pervades almost every metropolitan area.

i'll be the first to admit that in my little bit of traveling -- mostly around the states and a couple times to western europe -- i've not gotten much out of the "americanized" western world. the closest i got was a trip to greece. athens was one thing. that was the first time i ever felt like i might be getting out of my element. the point is, that's just the tip of the iceberg. there is sooo much more to see, but it's so easy to get stuck on the well-beaten path. traveling is hard work. it's tempting to want to stick to the tried-and-true.

what i like about afar is that it's travel stories with a twist. the september/october issue includes articles on nigeria's film industry (nollywood!), and istanbul through the architectural lens of royal architect sinan.

it's good stuff. like i said -- wanderlust. :)

graffiti as residential ornament.

via contemporist

this house is alright -- picture below. i like it. i don't love it on the whole. but that being said, i do love that they incorporated graffiti into the exterior design. understandably, they're trying to make an artistic statement. even the name of the house is the "open air sculpture house" by marek rytych architekt in poland. it's a pretty luxurious modern space, chock full -- i'm sure -- of a pretty extensive art collection. but this doesn't matter.

what does matter is the graffiti, which is the only reason i thought this house was really worth posting about. i love that there's a "framed" section for graffiti on the outside, complete with lights. so it doesn't look like some kid with a spraycan came and just did whatever the hell he felt like -- it has a place, and it's lit like a framed piece of art in any other display -- except this is the back yard or something. i would totally love a designated place for graffiti on my house -- something that works with the design, looks like an outdoor artwork. because it is. it's great! smart thinking.

door county.

occasionally i just need to get the hell out of dodge. today was one of those days. it was (still is) gorgeous outside, and sitting in my apartment all day didn't sound too fantastic.

i've been cooped up without a car lately, since about three weeks ago i got into a pretty lame car accident. the saab was rear-ended and the back shoved in nicely, and it is no longer drivable. so i've been hitching rides with whoever is willing to give one, and also riding my bike around a lot. but today i just needed to get out-out... not just ten miles to the other side of appleton.

i decided to take my camera with me, northeast. it was either door county, or up north along the lakeshore -- but door county won out. not a huge surprise. i love it up there. and on fantastically sunny late-august fridays, it's particularly welcoming.

on my way up to green bay, i passed a convoy of corvettes -- the fox valley corvette club was clearly out for a ride. there had to have been at least twenty, if not closer to thirty ... i was a little bit disappointed there weren't any oldies in with the mix. and i don't even like corvettes.

up in door county itself, it took me one attempt at a photo at cave point county park (the free alternative to whitefish bay state park, although i'm going to check that out someday) to realize the camera battery was all but dead. so there went that idea (the photo above was taken with my mobile phone).

lake michigan is really something, especially on days like this when there's a wind. if it smelled like salt in the air, we might as well have been on the ocean; i was moved enough by this feeling of having gone really, really far to get to this place that i sat down on the edge of a bluff and sun-soaked for a minute, imagining that i was in big sur or somewhere. it's really hard to imagine the smell of salt, though, when all you can smell is fish and lake.

anyway. it was gorgeous. drove up the eastern side of the peninsula, meandering around country roads and trying to avoid hitting the numerous cyclists out enjoying the day.

the northernmost point i reached was ellison bay, where i tried my luck at another county park, only to find that it ended in a gravel road and woods -- which would have been wonderful if only i had brought some decent walking-in-the-woods sort of shoes. on my drive back down the road, though, i happened upon a brand new contemporary home and was architecturally enamored. lots of modular shapes and glass -- something straight out of dwell magazine, and not the typical sort of home up in door county at all. i'm still kind of dribbly about it.

struck gold at an ellison bay used bookshop called wm. caxton ltd. which apparently is also a local publisher. i found a damien hirst book for $25, which was a very good deal -- unfortunately the binding is almost ready to totally give, but this chick does not care. i was super pumped to find that book, and the bookstore -- it was amazing. all of the sections were huge, the shelves suuuuper high, and wayyyy too much material to casually browse in less than a few hours.

made my way back down the busier west side of the peninsula and returned home around 2pm. a short day trip, but well worth it. day trips are definitely ace.

trichterfeld bei dontrien, von leuchtkugeln erhellt

i've had a re-discovery. i first saw this print at uw madison's chazen art museum. madison has a spectacular collection of 20th century german and austrian prints, and since i took a couple of 20th century art courses there under a professor who's written books on max beckmann--a prominent german expressionist--i was bound to see these prints at some point.

this particular one was laid out on the table in the chazen's print room, along with some other ones that i barely remember. there was a striking emil nolde, and a paul klee. but more than those, even though i studied them intensely, and even wrote a paper on the klee... the otto dix print, trichterfelt bei dontrien, von leuchtkugeln erhellt (craterfield near dontrien, lit up by flares), 1924, part of the der krieg (war) cycle has stuck with me.

i'm not sure what it is about seeing a piece of art in person. even if it is just a print. there's something about the texture of the paper, the ink, the penciled-in numbered edition, and signature in the corner. it's one-of-a-kind, even in a cycle that may have printed fifty or a hundred of the same image. someone took a block or a stone and they pressed it down on that paper and made an image out of a scratched surface, ink, and paper. these simple things together, done well, can bring a hand to one's heart.

it's nearly abstract. it's so simple, and yet the emotional and even physical implications of a crater field in world war I france are massive. it could be the surface of the moon; one might even guess that it is if it wasn't within the context of the rest of the cycle. it stands out to me, also, because it differs greatly from the rest of the works into the series. the national gallery of australia has a good article on this series, along with some other images from it.

i'm not sure why it has stuck with me so much more than other prints from this era. i have a fondness for german expressionist prints and woodcuts, so it's no surprise that one would remain engrained over time. it must be the emotion of such a simple, seemingly empty image.

dix is not necessarily my favorite german expressionist. his work is amazing. but it is also disconcerting. it's that disturbance factor that makes me love it and loathe it simultaneously. his art came from a deep, dark place, rooted in the misery of death and war in early 20th century europe. that, of course, is what makes it as fascinating as it is.

below, just because it's arguably his most famous painting, and because it's awesome (and yet, in its own way, still disturbing) dix's portrait of the journalist sylvia von harden, 1926: