The Genius That is Frank Gehry

While I was in Seattle last month, I got my first experience of Frank Gehry's architecture in person. Excuse my excitement as I post a lot of pictures.

Gehry, a Canadian-born architect now living in LA, studied at Los Angeles City College, University of Southern California's School of Architecture, and topped off his education by dropping out of Harvard's City Planning program.


I'm a huge architecture nerd, so I was so excited to visit the Experience Music Project. The building was completed in 2000 and is home to many exhibitions about Seattle's music scene, as well as music from all over the world.



As soon as the EMP was in sight as we walked there from our hotel, I couldn't contain my excitement. This building did not disappoint!






It's truly a work of art, combining organic shapes with metallic and glossy materials in baby blue, copper, red and pinks.



It's curves were so gorgeous, and I love how the public transit train runs right through the building.


In one end....



... and out the other.


(Is this a sphynx? Intentional or not?)



The interior of the building is nearly as impressive. It's a seemingly endless interior of curves, halls, metals, and shapes, all accented with bright colors.


The tourist picture, complete with the Space Needle in the EMP's reflection. I look cool and collected here, but I was dying on the inside.

I think I spent more time gawking at the architecture than I did at the exhibits inside the museum (a common criticism of Gehry's work).


The EMP is just one of Gehry's works, though one of his more famous.



Among his other notable pieces is Hotel Marqués De Riscal in Alava, Spain.


The hotel is built into the Spanish country, and is almost like a ribbon on the side of a hill.


Another notable piece is the Disney Concert Hall in LA, completed in 2003.



Another Gehry building I hope to visit one day is the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Stair Porn - sfw

I absolutely love stairs, ever since I was a kid. There's something that speaks of elegance in a well-designed staircase. I also may or may not have had this dream of walking down a huge ornate staircase in a fancy dress, a la Belle in Beauty and the Beast...

I came across a really cool blog about stairs the other day, called stair porn. The only downside of stair porn is that the majority of them have no explanation or mention of the designer or the background.

Here's a few of my favorite stairs from stair porn.



Of course, I have to start with this awesome stair "signage" by Paula Scherr. I work as a graphic designer in a creative building called Art Space, and one of my latest projects is to create new signage at each floor landing. I'm trying to pitch this as a concept for the project. Hopefully it'll fly.


A unique "cut-out" solution to a railing in Mondrian South Beach.


"Reverse" stairs by Michael Wilford, an architect from East Sussex.


Art deco stairs in a family residence in Brussels.


While the style of this one is a bit gaudy for my taste, I love how it twists within itself!



A unique self-contained spiral staircase in Almere, Netherlands.


I love how practical this is! Making beautiful use of an otherwise wasted space.


Once again, making use of space. Though I have a feeling I'd rather want to sit in the sun and read there, than walk on those stairs. I believe it's from a Flat in Vigo.


The minimalist in me LOVES this. Though if I were walking on it, I'd probably be grasping for something to hold on to as I got to the top, haha.


And last but not least is one of my all-time favorite staircases. Or rather series of staircases.



This is called Chand Baori, a series of stairs leading to a well in a village called Abhaneri in India. It was built in the 9th century, is 13 stories high, 100 feet deep, and has 3500 stairs. According to local legend, it was built by ghosts in one night. This is so remarkable, I love it!

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I came across a cool idea for flooring this evening.


It might look like expensive hardwood with handcarved details, but it's actually flooring made out of recycled leather belts.




Artist Inghua Ting founded TING London in 2000, and all her products are refurbished and recycled. I think it's a super creative way of reusing something old and making it into a really unique, beautiful part of your home.

Tiles run at about $75 a square foot and are even held together with environmentally friendly water based glue.




I also came across a super cool company called Pedini, based out of Italy, that designs round kitchens.


As a graphic designer, one of the clients I work for the most is a cabinet company, so I'd consider myself to be pretty familiar with cabinets, but I've never seen anything like this other than the Jetsons. I love the curve at the end, it's a great use of space, which staying original and out of the typical modular fashion of kitchens.


And while I love the j-shaped kitchen, this c-kitchen is just a little too round for my taste. Unless you have a huge kitchen space to work with, it's a bit of an impractical use of the space. I do think it's really cool and innovative though, makes me think of something I would have seen on futuristic shows as a child.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are one of my favorite rooms for design because sinks and bath tubs can have such cool design and be great focal features. I'm a huge sucker for unusual and beautiful sinks.


Kasch is a company from Munich that creates what they call "overflow" tubs. They're built into the floor of the bathroom, rather than above ground, and I think they're really cool.



And, as always, Kohler has some great sinks.


One of my favorite ideas for a bathtub comes from architects Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens in Belgium. I'd say more about them, but their website is in some funny language I can't read.



They found a 7.5 foot wide space between two buildings and constructed their office/house in between, in four levels.


Each floor is carefully optimized to serve a purpose, without any space going to waste and nothing unnecessary inside.



From ground floor to fourth floor, they serve as office, dining, living, and bedroom.


I especially like this idea for a house/office because it's reusing what would have otherwise been wasted space and created something useful out of it, rather than building on a new lot in a suburb. It's an idea I've never seen before, and I always love design that mashes unconventional within classic.

The Eve of Christmas

I got the most lovely Christmas present today (among other lovely ones). I got a big Annie Liebowitz book.

This is not an Annie Liebowitz photograph, rather it is a photograph of her and her assistant, on top of the Chrysler building. I'm sure they had a good reason for being there. Anyways, I'm very excited to read this book.

I went for lunch to one of my all time favorite places in Winnipeg: Fresh Cafe. Fresh Cafe is on Corydon, right close to my house, and was named one of the Top 10 Best Canadian Restaurants of 2007.


They buy as much local and organic food as possible, and have a lot of healthy dishes, as well as a huge juice/smoothie bar, both of which they make on the spot, once you've ordered. I got my favorite dish - in-house smoked salmon eggs benedict (sans the eggs, of course, and extra hollandaise sauce, I could eat their hollandaise as soup) with hashbrowns, and a strawberry/orange/cranberry smoothie, with vanilla creme brulee for dessert. It was delicious.

Architecture designed for children is some of my favorite, because there are no rules and anything bright and crazy goes. One of the coolest stores for kids I've seen is The Kids Republic bookstore in Beijing.


I have a feeling that if more bookstores in Winnipeg were like this, there would be a lot more children reading here! The store was designed by architect Keiichiro Sako.


Sako, known for his strong attention to graphic shapes and crisp lines, has also designed subsequent The Kids Republic bookstores in Tianjin and Shanghai.