Annabelle Selldorf (1960-) is a German born architect and founder of Selldorf Architects based in New York City. In youth she was inspired by the work her father did on a house in Cologne. Later by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. She studied at the Pratt Institute as well as the Syracuse University.


Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility




347 Bowery




Steinway Hall




David Zwirner – 20th Street




Hauser Wirth 18th Street




National Gallery, London




10 Bond Street




Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego




Clark Institute Visitor Centre, Williamstown, MA

It’s always fun to explore houses used for past television shows or movies. Some are facades, some you can visit, and some are private homes. So should you find yourself in front of one be respectful.

When in San Francisco several years ago I wanted to see The Painted Ladies. That row of houses is next to Alamo Square. My daughter and I taxied over. Then from the top of Alamo Square we could so easily see our hotel downtown that we decided to walk back. Little did we know we would be walking through the Tenderloin District. There we were in sketchy neighbourhood when my daughter decides to pet a dog tied on a post outside a restaurant. The owner came running out and started yelling at us. In a pre cellphone era we hightailed it out of there and back to our hotel. Thing about San Francisco is very often one block is safe and the next is not. At least that’s how it was when I visited.

Have you visited any? Is there one you would live in?

ADD INTERIOR PICS

Academy of Music
East 14th Street and Irving Place, Manhattan
1854 – 1926




The Metropolitan Opera House – also known as the Old Metropolitan Opera House
1411 Broadway
1883 – 1967
J. Cleveland Cady





I chose to explore this topic as it will be featured in season 2 of The Gilded Age, wich will be released on Sunday, October 29.

Between 1906 and 1910 New York City was the setting of the War of the Operas.

At first the Academy of Music was the setting for Operas. It was considered the epitomy of high culture and refinement. Initially 4000 seats on 5 levels a fire in 1866 necessitated rebuilding and reduced the number of seats to 2500. New York high society had their boxes. These were owned by the old money. New money was not able to obtain boxes. New money at the time being John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and William Kissam Vanderbilt.

The battle started when the new money had the Metropolitan Opera house built. Twice the size of the Academy it was of course very opulent. Boxes were purchased at the time for $15,000 ($46,000 in today’s money).

Eventually Caroline Aster who was the ultimate New York socialite conceded and relocated to the Metropolitan Opera House. With her acceptance of the new operat house the rest of the old money followed.

Homesthetics has put together an interesting blog post entitled “45 of the most famous buildings in the world with unconventional architectural structures.”

Fascinating buildings. One in Canada, some in Europe, but it seems like the majority are in the Arab world and Asia. It’s an interesting grouping. I’d say I love most of the buildings. I think they could have done without: the binoculars, the strawberry, and the teapot. Those could be part of a post perhaps called humourous architecture (or kitch). Zabeel tower scares me, it reminds me of the spires on St Mary’s Catholic Church, in the Civic Hospital area. Every time I drive by I think “ouch” looking at how sharp those 4 spires are.

The choice of topic for today’s architecture blog post was easy. Set to change the live entertainment standard, every major news media was covering the opening of The Sphere at the Venetian in Las Vegas: BBC, Forbes, Euronews, CNN,



At first I was going to do explore other large Speres but all things considered there is so much material here – I thought let’s focus. The Sphere is 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide. For reference purposed the Peace Tower is 302 feet light. There are 1.2 million LED puck lights inside and outside. The Sphere was opened September 29 with a U2 residency. It was designed by Populous a prolific architecture firm. Haptic technology is built into 10,000 of the 18,600 seats which of course all have access to wi-fi. SACO Technologies a Canadian company designed both the exterior and interior screens. I don’t feel I can adequately address the speaker system but I can say it has 4D technology which includes wind and scent.

Is it tacky, ridiculous, over the top: Well yes. It’s in Las Vegas and adjacent to the Strip.

Archdaily presents some fun pics.

Eileen Gray was an Irish architect and furniture designer. Born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland in 1878, she died in Paris in 1976. During her carreer she was influenced professionally by Philip Wilson Steer, Henry tonks, and Frederick Brown. Personally she was linked to Romaine Brooks, Loie Fuller, Marie-Louise Damen, and Natalie Barney. Her most famous residential structure is E-1027. Furniture wise the E-1027 table designed in 1927, remains a very popular table almost 100 years later. Her Dragon chair was sold in auction at the Yves Saint-Laurent estate sale. I love chairs but it’s hard for me to understand how a chair can be sold for so much. My thought is as is for all high end pieces if someone paid that for it it must have merit, merit that we may not understand.

Le Corbusier, an architect I normally respect was a houseguest of Jean Badovici (a coleague of Gray) he took it upon himself to paint murals on the walls. Much to Gray’s displeasure!


E-1027



E-1027 table



Dragon Chair

Frida Escobedo has won the 2023 Charlotte Perriand Award. The award serves to recognize an architect who infuses quality of life into their work. Escobedo has repeatedly done so. The award is named after the late Charlotte Perriand, a French architect who assisted Le Corbusier. She contributed greatly to the design of 3 of his most iconic chairs: the B301, the B306 and the LC2 Grand Comfort.

ArchDaily tells us about an Art Deco Revival 100 years after its introduction. Interesting! Perhaps Doug Casey of Charlesfort Developments was ahead of that curve. I remember coming back to the country a few years ago and being startled by the number of Art Deco buildings. I coined the buildings Neo-Deco. See article in the Ottawa Citizen in 2015. The most prominent projects include:

• The Continental at 75 Cleary Avenue;
• Hudson Park at 235 and 245 Kent Street;
• The Gardens at 85 and 95 Bronson Avenue; and
• The Merit at 108 Lisgar Street.

Those who know me, know I love my chairs. If I were to lay on Freud’s couch I’d probably say it really became a passion when I visited a chair museum in Denver, Colorado.

Here, ArchDaiy proposes designs by Alvar Aalto, Eileen Gray (oops a name I had not heard before, though I’ve seen some of her work and yes we must explore), Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, and Verner Panton.

Interesting that most iconic chairs were designed by architects. Something else to delve into!