B

A small scale prototype floor design (of the letter "B") for a restaurant interior, 2002.
The miniature version was made to see that it would look good in the large scale. It did, but unfortunately there was a flood a week after we finished and it had to all be pulled up and replaced with carpeting. However the little version got some walls and a mantle and lived on as a room for Linda's doll.

Below, the design in the restaurant's hall, before polyurethaning (when the wood became richer looking, like above)

Ingmar Bergman's note-scrawled cabinet

Which is what my laptop is looking like, with the daily scribblings of our new usernames and passwords.

Thanks a lot, hacker.

Aside from that, Bergman's estate was put on the block in 2009 by the Swedish auction house Bukowskis. Going through the catalog you can see what a well-heeled Scandinavian house should be furnished with. Not just the obvious designers- and actually there was no Aalto- but lesser known Nordic furniture makers and craftsmen, most everything in shades of wood and white.

Two favorites:
One of two Bruno Mathsson Pernilla 69 lounge chairs:

and a 1960's glass sculpture by Goran Waarf for Kosta.


Definitely check out the catalog, and the rest of Bukowskis back catalogs. The photos get incredibly huge (for the absentee bidders) so it's an excellent resource for your reference libraries.

Ingmar Bergman's estate at Bukowskis

Wary Meyers Baxter Library Installations

Our first round of installations for the Old Baxter Library/Via Advertising Agency is finally all together in one spot on our website. Including this fountain pen & ink seating group, which would look equally cool with oil wells, pastry bags, or shampoo bottles- whatever your company's reception area needs, we can do it.

Click!

Children's Spaces

All kinds of awesomeness from Molly and Norman McGrath's incredible 1978 book on interiors for kids, Children's Spaces- 50 Architects and Designers Create Environments for the Young.

Without a doubt the best book ever published about children's design.

Just looking at it makes me want to have another one.

related: Kids' Stuff, Fletcher's room

Sottseuss

Speaking of Ettore Sottsass, and kid's stuff, there's no kid thing more Memphissed-out than these wooden Zolo toys from 1985. We found them all ( there are about 50 pieces) in their original wooden case at a church sale. Chipped, splintered, and enticingly dangerous, they're probably not so safe to give to our son, so we'll happily use them as surreal Sottsossian objets until ...
actually these may be just a grown-up toy after all.

Happy Valentine's Day!

... and be sure to click over to You Have Been Here Sometime and read our short guest post about Ettore Sottsass, his Superbox, and all things boxy and striped.

Kids' Stuff

Pages from the 1979 book "Kids' Stuff" by Linda Foa and Geri Brin. Besides "Children's Spaces" by Molly McGrath (later) this is our favorite book about kids' design. If you judged Kids' Stuff by its crazy cover you'd probably never open it, but inside it's like a kid's version of High Tech, the 70's industrial-style home design sourcebook, with hundreds brilliantly designed things, like chairs, tables, lamps, storage, drawer pulls, tents, ropes... all photographed either on seamless, on a Superstudio-esque grid, or in the cool NYC apartments of the authors and their friends. One of my favorites is the table from Scandinavian Design (above), used as a changing table, and "actually billed as a writing desk by the manufacturer".  The book's acknowledgements mention a heavy thanks to designer Joe D'Urso and design author Barbara Plumb, and it shows. Also it's a sourcebook itself, so it tells you what everything is, how much it cost, and where it was available. Everything that is except the incidental decor in the kids' rooms, notably this girl's ball-bearing based, plastic sphere-encased, self-levelling desk lamp (below). 

The Basement Stacks

The latest of our installations for the the old Baxter Library in Portland, 

newly occupied by the Via Advertising Agency. This one's in the basement, referencing the old library, history, roots, poltergeists...

Braun Aromaster KF 20

Without a doubt the best designed coffee maker ever made.
Designed by Florian Seiffert for Braun in 1972, it was immediately a classic of design and technology, with its vertical automatic drip system, dual heaters, and stunning aesthetics. We bought ours from a man who bought it new at Zabar's (Eli Zabar, food impresario and Wary Meyers Painting Pillow owner) in 1972, made 2 pots of coffee and then felt that it was too nice to keep using, and kept it as a design object instead. When he told us that I said, "That's exactly what we were going to do with it!" We made one pot of perfect coffee and then cleaned it up and put it back in its box. Occasionally it'll come out for an admiration, usually after (or during) watching Alien (it was the spaceship Nostromo's coffee maker).



Braun design links:
http://radio.gort.dk/braun/
http://www.braun.com/global/world-of-braun/braun-collection.html
http://www.braun.com/global/world-of-braun/braun-design.html
http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

My Karma Ran Over My Dogma

Some favorites from the collection.

Silver and Gold

Victor Vasarely silkscreen serigraph, from a thrift shop. They had no idea what it was but the $35 price they said was because of the nice (teak) frame. Signed by Vasarely and printed by Editeur Denise Rene. 79/150. Awesome!

Linda spotted the Anglepoisian task floor lamp the other day on somedody's curb, out with the recyclables. It's in perfect condition, just a little dusty, and although it's tough to tell, huge- each of those arms is 42". It also has a gold metal cover for the base, but I removed that for the more Brutalist concrete look, a la Ivan Chermayeff, who sunk his task lamp into a cinderblock.

David Hicks on...

A boxed holy trinity of decorating books by the Headmaster of interior design,

 from an estate sale in England a few years ago.

David Hicks at a Schweppervescent tablescape in his London home, 1972.
From an old W Magazine.

wary meyers plastic crumpled paper ball

Another of our installation projects for the old Baxter Library building/ Via Ad agency. This is our giant crumpled, ripped-from-a-spiral-notebook style polymer "paper" ball. (It's hard, formed plastic, not paper).

Seen here being blowtorched into shape with our fabricators Jeff and Bill. 

Currently suspended above the conference table at the ad agency, representing the creative process.

Smaller crumpled balls are in the works......