The recently-opened Crafting Modernism exhibition at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design is the perfect antidote to the geometric-steel-and-plastic concept of modern style. With works ranging from the late ’40s through 1969, the show focuses on a range of objects made from humanizing “craft media” like clay, wood, and fiber. In spite of the “do not touch” signs and roped-off exhibits, the impression left by these works was distinctly tactile. And seriously, who doesn’t LOVE anything by Isamu Noguchi?
If you can’t make it to MAD before January 15, then check out more images after the jump.
Virginia Woolf — most know the name, but few know the obscure biographical facts behind the name. Today, for example, is the day of her birth. To celebrate the 59 years that Woolf spent observing and writing about our world, we bring you 59 tidbits about her life. So, go ahead! Get better acquainted with one of the 20th century’s most important authors after the jump.
Ezra Stoller — considered a pioneer in the world of architectural photography — was known for snapping images of some of the 20th century’s most celebrated buildings, from the Guggenheim Museum to the TWA terminal at Idlewild Airport. In fact, his work was considered so influential that architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Paul Rudolph, and Richard Meier all wanted their buildings “Stollerized.”
His method for magically capturing a building’s essence? Patience. ”Photography is space, light, texture, of course,” Stoller once said, ”but the really important element is time. That nanosecond when the image organizes itself on the ground glass.” A selection of his gelatin silver prints are currently on display at New York’s Yossi Milo Gallery through February 12th; click through to check out a few of our favorite images of iconic NYC landmarks, alongside a few lesser known gems.
At 765 pages, Architecture of the Sun, Rizzoli’s lavishly illustrated survey of Los Angeles modernism from 1900 to 1970, is as angular as an Eames building but with the warmth of a Charles and Henry Greene California bungalow. Perched on a coffee table, a monolith of receding straight lines and hard cover, the volume peers over an ocean of pacific blue rug and recalls Pierre Koenig’s famous Case Study #21 house. But like the modernism the book examines, there is more here than form; there is content too. To give proper due to the buildings and the men who built them, author Thomas Hines needs all the pages he can get.
It never fails: Every Bloomsday, someone reminds us that Kate Bush’s “The Sensual World” is based on James Joyce’s Ulysses. Not that we mind — it’s always nice to have an excuse to listen to the song again. But this year, it inspired a lit-geek challenge: Could we compile an entire mixtape of songs inspired by modernist masters? While who qualifies as a modernist is a question for literary scholars to debate, we’re pretty satisfied with the 12 songs we’ve chosen. Tell us what you’d include in the comments.
It’s not Le Corbusier, it’s not a hedge funder’s new Long Island estate, and it’s not an institution of higher learning. What it is: a spanking-new, state-of-the-art homeless shelter in Lewisham, Great Britain. Architect Peter Barber designed the Spring Gardens center as a two-story “linear building with reception areas, double-height arcaded day rooms and training areas all with magnificent views into the garden, together with 40 en-suite rooms, each with its own south facing courtyard.” Oh, those adorably liberal Europeans, giving more than a guilt trip and scratchy blanket to the destitute! A few more images to incur your disbelief after the jump. Read More »
Architectural photographer and tastemaker Julius Shulman made the modern domesticity of Los Angeles into a consumable art form.
Shulman, who died this month at 98, shot glossy, stylized images of California cool, which in turn promoted the architecture of Richard Neutra, John Lautner, and their brethren. His iconic photographs symbolized the polished freedom of LA living, evoked by shots like that of models lounging in Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22.
, Rizzoli’s lavishly illustrated survey of Los Angeles modernism from 1900 to 1970, is as angular as an Eames building but with the warmth of a Charles and Henry Greene California bungalow. Perched on a coffee table, a monolith of receding straight lines and hard cover, the volume peers over an ocean of pacific blue rug and recalls 
