Outdoor Design in the Summertime

2Jane — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:42 +0000

Last week, after featuring an image of architect Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, it brought to mind other similar and equally haunting images from my mental scrapbook of structures: Santiago Calatrava’s modern cathedrals, the Route 66 Soda Bottle, featured on the cover of Interior Design’s 2008 year-end addition, and a local piece of inexplicable road art.

Renzo Piano's deconstructed interpretation of classical architecture constitutes my personal 'happy place' when it comes to architecture. After working in the Philadelphia offices of Louis Kahn, Piano went on to design the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. Above is his latest accomplishment: the new wing of Chicago's MCA.

Santiago Calatrava is one of today's most celebrated architects and nowhere are his soaring structures better staged than in his native Spain. I snapped Valencia's famous "blinking eye" building during a 2006 Holiday.

Route 66's newest attraction is an impressive gravity-defying 66-foot tall skeletal soda bottle anchoring a roadside diner/gas station called Pops. This self-portrait with friend (I'm in the glasses) was snapped last New Year's Eve just outside of Oklahoma City.

The 4th much smaller but not completely dissimilar structure adorns the median on Tampa’s beloved manse-lined Bayshore Boulevard. I drive past it nearly every day and, other than the obvious comparison to a ‘Slinky’, and its chipped, moldy surface, both results of the Florida clime, on a cursory glance it seems this piece of outdoor sculpture should find cover under the blanket of my design taste. Instead it makes me cringe.

Looking like a skinned, overgrown earthworm trying to bury itself beneath the hedges surrounding it, this piece of outdoor art has no discernable connection with the water and grand brick mansions that surround it. Bad form; no function.

Well, thank the design gods for a story by Ken Johnson in last Friday’s New York Times “Well-Behaved Street-Corner Sculpture”, explaining the relevance or lack thereof of outdoor art: “As an unscientific sampling of art in the public realm this summer confirms, contemporary outdoor art tends to offer unobjectionable, mildly decorative or entertaining and relatively empty experiences.” Turns out the Tampa piece is simply boring me and isn’t meant to make my soul sing.

Please let me know if you have any outdoor art pieces that work for you. As far as I’m concerned, as nice as it is to behold all aspects of the great outdoors in the summertime, the commercial formless/functionless eyesores that pepper our urban landscapes, otherwise known as outdoor art, are simply 5-and-dime accessories to the Madison Avenue wardrobe of the grandiose buildings that surround them.

Roxie Mae

Outdoor Design in the Summertime is a post from: 2Jane

2JANE in the Merchandise Mart: Postcards of Chicago

2Jane — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:30:17 +0000

My very lucky business partner, Beth, has just returned from 2JANE’s summertime visit to Chicago for the biannual gift show in the Merchandise Mart. The Mart is an impressive building at 4.2 million square feet—it’s almost as large as the Pentagon and the biggest commercial space on the planet. It would be easy to get lost in its infinite hallowed walls so we’re fortunate our collection is housed in the Right Brain showroom. Owned and run by veteran giftware maven Barbara Gross, Right Brain is one of the sweetest pieces of giftware real estate not only in the Mart but in the country. Thanks for another great show, Barbara!

At the entrance of the showroom, 2JANE takes center stage in the Right Brain collection.

The Innermost collection is vast and varied but the overall clean, contemporary look is well showcased in Right Brain.

Beth escaped the showroom to enjoy the beauty that is Chicago in the summer framed by Chi-Town's perennially compelling architecture. Here, the Millineum Park.

The barely 60-day old Modern Wing of the Chicago Art Institute is the latest addition to Chicago's architectural tome. Renzo Piano's vanguard sun-screen canopied building also happens to house one of 2JANE's newest customers, the Modern Shop, who carry Innermost's iconic Fantome Clocks and Ghost Candelabras.

Love that town!

Roxie Mae

2JANE in the Merchandise Mart: Postcards of Chicago is a post from: 2Jane

2Jane» Architecture

Outdoor Design in the Summertime

2JANE in the Merchandise Mart: Postcards of Chicago