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Photography

‘Camera Obscura’: Incredible Photographs of Indoor Cityscapes

By Chloe Pantazi on

In his 1978 novel Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino wrote, “The city…does not tell its past but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the street, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.” In Abelardo Morell‘s photography series, Camera Obscura (via Faith is Torment), every crevice of the interior space is infused with the city. The artist created his series by photographing outdoor cityscapes from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge and then projecting these images, with a small lens or prism, onto the walls of rooms. Morell has observed that an “increased sense of reality” lends itself to the photos, though perhaps it’s more the unreality of these images, and how the interior, when interposed with the exterior, begins to take on new meanings. We might regard these rooms as invisible cities in themselves, containing everything and nothing.

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Design

A Photo Tour of Famous New Yorkers’ Living Rooms

By Claire Cottrell on

There’s nothing we love more than virtual voyeuristic visits with fellow fabulous New Yorkers. The original real-life interiors photographer Dominique Nabokov (long before The Selby and Backyard Bill started snapping pics of stylish spaces) started documenting the inside lives of others as understood by their living rooms some 20 years ago. Her visits with celebrated artists, writers, designers, intellectuals, and the occasional celebrity was compiled into a humble, but fascinating, survey titled New York Living Rooms. … Read More

Art

10 Famous Artists’ Stunning Studios

By Claire Cottrell on

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “An artist’s studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it.” An interesting concept, but does it necessarily hold true centuries later? With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at some of the most inspiring ateliers of some of the world’s most famous artists. From Picasso’s spacious studio on the French Riviera that was both his home and the hub of his social life to Georgia O’Keeffe’s beloved Ghost Ranch in New Mexico where she could work both inside and out, click through to check out some of the most spectacular creative spaces in the world. Let us know in the comments which you’d most love to work in! … Read More

Design

A Guide to ’70s Chic: Vintage Photos from ‘Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating’

By Claire Cottrell on

Before there was IKEA, there was Bloomingdale’s. Founded in 1861 by Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale, the first incarnation of today’s upscale department store was a “Ladies Notions’ Shop” specializing in hoop-skirts on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Having the brains — and the imagination — to predict that the bourgeois metropolis to come would need a glorious retail destination housing everything from a delicatessen department to the largest rooftop greenhouse in America for city dwellers wanting the fresh air of a country estate, the Brothers Bloomingdale did more than outfit an era, they defined it.

Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating by Barbara D’Arcy, the influential interior design guru and chief decorator of the model rooms in the flag ship store’s furniture department, is testament to its influence. As one particularly helpful Amazon reviewer writes, “this book showcases the best of the best, furniture for your dream home, no budget in sight. It’s an inspirational, all-out, sky’s-the-limit explosion of creativity, trends and fantasy.” Click through to check out the very best of this ’70s design dream tome. Then, let us know in the comments what inspires you the most today! … Read More

Photography

Fascinating Portraits of Rooms Shot From Above

By Emily Temple on

Most of us see the rooms in which we live, work, and shop in the same way every day — if, with our busy lives and preoccupied minds, we even notice them at all. In German photographer Menno Aden’s intriguing series Room Portraits, which we spotted over at My Modern Met, Aden flips our perspective, taking aerial shots of bedrooms, stores, workspaces and living areas, and presenting them as flat portraiture. We love the way the swap adds insane gravity (at least in our minds) and intimate meaning to the organization and selection of objects, each thing in its proper (or wholly improper) place. Click through to check out a few images from the series, and then be sure to head over to Aden’s website to see even more of his work. … Read More

Design

Awesome Furniture Built to Look like Giant Versions of Everyday Items

By Emily Temple on

Here at Flavorpill, we always appreciate a little creative design work, especially when it comes to highly covetable home decor. Inspired by Jeff Skierka’s “Mixtape Table,” which we spotted over at Design Milk this morning, we’ve been dreaming of filling our apartments with cool furniture crafted to look like enormous versions of everyday items. Click through to check out our mini-roundup of furniture that looks like other (seemingly random) items — cassette tapes, shoes, calculators, clothes pins — and let us know which you’d want in your home in the comments! … Read More

Design

Guess That Swag Curtain

By Kelsey Keith on

Celebrities and real estate, a one-two punch that makes the real estate blogs go wild. Case in point: this ostentatious 10-room penthouse — located on a prime section of Fifth Avenue facing Central Park — on the market for $13.9 million. Sure, that’s a hefty chunk of change, but check out all the murals that come with! (We’re not sure how much of the velvet furnishings are included.) See if you guess the conservative “man of the people” who decorated this trainwreck, after the… Read More

Design

Trend Watch: Barefoot and In a Magazine

By Kelsey Keith on

Online-only decorating magazine Lonny launched today, helmed by former Domino market editor Michelle Adams who incorporates a lot of the dearly-departed publication’s magical aesthetic. Flip through the onscreen mag and you’ll find similar fonts, styling, mix of high/low, and fashion, not to mention the presence of at least five former Domino staffers. One thing we noticed when flipping through the first issue’s seven – count ‘em, seven – home tours was a certain proclivity of photographing homeowners with no shoes on. With thinking caps on, we realized this has gotten to be a common occurrence among design publications marketed towards that certain niche of quirky yet modern yuppies who still buy magazines. Pictorial evidence of the barefoot trend after the… Read More