Innovator: Will Alsop

The Sharp Centre for Design by Will Alsop

Ontario College of Art & Design

100 McCaul Street

Toronto

Ontario Canada

Article from www.galinsky.com

Alsop Architects (Robbie/Young+Wright Architects - local architects) 2004.

The Sharp Centre for Design was built to accommodate an expansion of the Ontario College of Art & Design in downtown Toronto. The project was funded by the College, the Province of Ontario, and Rosalie and Isadore Sharp - the benefactors after whom the building is named. The building houses new art studios, lecture theaters, exhibit spaces, and faculty offices. It is the first building completed in North America by the English architect Will Alsop.

With the addition of the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Will Alsop cleverly addresses the complicated notion of expansion in a dense urban setting with his soaring black and white box. The building stitches a connection between existing buildings while providing new space in the rectangular volume that proudly soars above. Organizing the rectangular block above the site allows the street level to become what promises to be a new and valuable civic space that can become an extension of the activities of the college. Still the building may be criticized for being somewhat exclusive, failing to offer a serious connection to the street. However regardless of this consideration one cannot help but believe that there is room in Toronto for this type of assertive expression.

Provocative, unconventional, hopeful, whimsical, and perhaps irreverent, the building is remarkable in the context of Toronto. As a winner of a 2004 RIBA Worldwide Award, the building was described as "courageous, bold and just a little insane."

Check out http://www.alsoparchitects.com to see all of Will Alsop's amazingly innovative architecture worldwide. His website is so inspiring.

Innovator: Will Alsop

The Sharp Centre for Design by Will Alsop

Ontario College of Art & Design

100 McCaul Street

Toronto

Ontario Canada

Article from www.galinsky.com

Alsop Architects (Robbie/Young+Wright Architects - local architects) 2004.

The Sharp Centre for Design was built to accommodate an expansion of the Ontario College of Art & Design in downtown Toronto. The project was funded by the College, the Province of Ontario, and Rosalie and Isadore Sharp - the benefactors after whom the building is named. The building houses new art studios, lecture theaters, exhibit spaces, and faculty offices. It is the first building completed in North America by the English architect Will Alsop.

With the addition of the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Will Alsop cleverly addresses the complicated notion of expansion in a dense urban setting with his soaring black and white box. The building stitches a connection between existing buildings while providing new space in the rectangular volume that proudly soars above. Organizing the rectangular block above the site allows the street level to become what promises to be a new and valuable civic space that can become an extension of the activities of the college. Still the building may be criticized for being somewhat exclusive, failing to offer a serious connection to the street. However regardless of this consideration one cannot help but believe that there is room in Toronto for this type of assertive expression.

Provocative, unconventional, hopeful, whimsical, and perhaps irreverent, the building is remarkable in the context of Toronto. As a winner of a 2004 RIBA Worldwide Award, the building was described as "courageous, bold and just a little insane."

Check out http://www.alsoparchitects.com to see all of Will Alsop's amazingly innovative architecture worldwide. His website is so inspiring.

Atonement

Cliche themes and storyline aside, this is a film worth watching. Very well done.

Most definitely Oscar-worthy.

Watch the trailer and see photos: http://www.atonementthemovie.co.uk/site/site.html

-S

Atonement

Cliche themes and storyline aside, this is a film worth watching. Very well done.

Most definitely Oscar-worthy.

Watch the trailer and see photos: http://www.atonementthemovie.co.uk/site/site.html

-S

Robber Baron Series By STUDIO JOB

MANTEL CLOCK



CABINET




STANDING LAMP




TABLE


JEWEL SAFE

Robber Baron Series - Tales of POWER, CORRUPTION, ART, & INDUSTRY. Cast in bronze - by Studio Job

The Robber Baron series by Studio Job is an important suite of five cast-bronze furnishings, consisting of a Cabinet, Mantel Clock, Table, Standing Lamp, and Jewel Safe, each to be offered in a limited edition of five.

"Magnificent in scale, [...] the series reflects the outrageous excesses of America’s 19th century tycoons and Russia’s new oligarchs. These surreal, highly-expressive furnishings, each a complex composition of multiple visual elements depicting a narrative - much like a cathedral’s stained glass windows or its majestic bronze front doors - represent an interior belonging to a powerful industrial leader or his heirs. With clouds of pollution belching from towering smoke stacks, and missiles, falcons, gas masks, warplanes, and wrenches adorning golden surfaces, Robber Baron celebrates and shames both Art and Industry." mossonline.com


About Studio Job (source, dezeen.com) : Graduates of the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Job Smeets (b.1970, Belgium) and Nynke Tynagel (b. 1977, the Netherlands), who both live as well as work together, form Studio Job.

From the beginning, their collaboration resulted in highly expressive, usually one-off or limited-edition artisan works, often cast in bronze or, later, finely constructed in laser-cut inlaid woods.

Employing iconographic, pan-historic imagery which can be in the same moment both heraldic as well as cartoon-like, the results are consistently monumental and yet somehow primitive, and generally read neo-baroque, clearly fantasist, and certainly more mannerist than modernist.

Projecting a strong narrative quality, suggesting often a heroic battle between good and evil, their gorgeous collections seem born more from a medieval, guild-like process than an industrial approach.

Although, by definition, their work has primarily been geared to collectors and museums, Studio Job has collaborated successfully with various like-minded industrial manufacturers, including Swarovski, Austria, and Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum and Moooi, the Netherlands.

Their work has been shown internationally in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Central Museum, Utrecht, the Dutch Textile Museum, Tilburg, and the Groninger Museum, Groningen.

Quick Note: The term "robber baron" dates back to the twelfth & thirteenth centuries, originally referring to certain feudal lords of land through which the Rhine River in Europe flowed. The term was again used in the early twentieth century referring to the economic princes of the day, AKA billionaires.

Robber Baron Series By STUDIO JOB

MANTEL CLOCK



CABINET




STANDING LAMP




TABLE


JEWEL SAFE

Robber Baron Series - Tales of POWER, CORRUPTION, ART, & INDUSTRY. Cast in bronze - by Studio Job

The Robber Baron series by Studio Job is an important suite of five cast-bronze furnishings, consisting of a Cabinet, Mantel Clock, Table, Standing Lamp, and Jewel Safe, each to be offered in a limited edition of five.

"Magnificent in scale, [...] the series reflects the outrageous excesses of America’s 19th century tycoons and Russia’s new oligarchs. These surreal, highly-expressive furnishings, each a complex composition of multiple visual elements depicting a narrative - much like a cathedral’s stained glass windows or its majestic bronze front doors - represent an interior belonging to a powerful industrial leader or his heirs. With clouds of pollution belching from towering smoke stacks, and missiles, falcons, gas masks, warplanes, and wrenches adorning golden surfaces, Robber Baron celebrates and shames both Art and Industry." mossonline.com


About Studio Job (source, dezeen.com) : Graduates of the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Job Smeets (b.1970, Belgium) and Nynke Tynagel (b. 1977, the Netherlands), who both live as well as work together, form Studio Job.

From the beginning, their collaboration resulted in highly expressive, usually one-off or limited-edition artisan works, often cast in bronze or, later, finely constructed in laser-cut inlaid woods.

Employing iconographic, pan-historic imagery which can be in the same moment both heraldic as well as cartoon-like, the results are consistently monumental and yet somehow primitive, and generally read neo-baroque, clearly fantasist, and certainly more mannerist than modernist.

Projecting a strong narrative quality, suggesting often a heroic battle between good and evil, their gorgeous collections seem born more from a medieval, guild-like process than an industrial approach.

Although, by definition, their work has primarily been geared to collectors and museums, Studio Job has collaborated successfully with various like-minded industrial manufacturers, including Swarovski, Austria, and Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum and Moooi, the Netherlands.

Their work has been shown internationally in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Central Museum, Utrecht, the Dutch Textile Museum, Tilburg, and the Groninger Museum, Groningen.

Quick Note: The term "robber baron" dates back to the twelfth & thirteenth centuries, originally referring to certain feudal lords of land through which the Rhine River in Europe flowed. The term was again used in the early twentieth century referring to the economic princes of the day, AKA billionaires.

The Father of "Hollywood Regency"

David Hicks (1929-98) has emerged as the most influential interior designer of his generation. His signature style has inspired contemporary designers of both fashion and home, and yet many individuals in and out of the design biz don't seem to be familiar with his work.

Often, popular interior designers Kelly Wearstler (kwid.com) & Jonathan Adler (jonathanadler.com) are credited with the "Hollywood Regency" look which has exploded in the mainstream in the past few years. And although these designers are brilliantly talented at what they do, they are more or less creating spaces that are an homage to the look that David Hicks created decades ago.

Long before the look was coined as "Hollywood Regency", David Hicks was creating beautiful spaces across the atlantic in England. He launched his career with the decoration of his own house in London in 1954, and soon began to design interiors for aristocracy, media and fashion (Vidal Sassoon, Helena Rubinstein, the Duchess of Rutland and Mrs Condé Nast).

In 1960, Hicks married Lady Pamela Mountbatten and was soon making carpets for Windsor Castle and decorating the Prince of Wales' first apartment at Buckingham Palace.

The resurgence of his design aesthetic can be found all over L.A. today. The Viceroy and Roosevelt hotel are two prime examples of Hicks style, so next time you're there compare the interior spaces with the photos of Hicks work; circa 1970's (above).