early father's day // late mother's day

The reason for me getting interested in landscape architecture is probably because of my parents. My mom is an incredible sewer, very sensitive to color, quality, texture and fit. She is a gardener and truly appreciates good composition. If I have any of those qualities, they probably came from her. My dad also has a keen, analytical eye and has, for as long as i can remember, been an armchair architect drawing house plans, taking us to homes in construction to look at the floor plans while especially enjoying the art of residential architecture. I have come to appreciate those things, too, and hope to call myself a landscape architect very soon.

One of my Dad's favorite architects is Royal Barry Wills. Royal Wills never became well known enough to be on a first name basis in the world; his often humble, yet successful work exemplifies the ethic that fame is no reason to become an architect. Subtlety and comfort are at the core of his design philosophy, two ideals my dad finds appealing in architecture.

As an aficionado of fabrics, my mother has favorite designers, too, but in sewing, and especially quilting, limiting yourself to one designer would be silly because the real magic comes about as a result of a good combination diverse fabrics. It can be an endless task to bring multiple colors, patterns, and forms together to create a cohesive composition. Choices of fabric may seem numerous until you start putting one next to another to find out if they get along or not. Often, you may start with ten orange-based samples thinking you are all set, only to find out the hues or patterns don't fit together and you end up with just two instead of ten.

I say all of this because I visited the home of a Danish designer, Finn Juhl, and it struck me that it is equal parts Mom and Dad, and ever since I have been thinking about how much the they have influenced me. Mother's Day came and went, and though I called my mom, I didn't send a card (sorry mom!). Father's Day is only a week away and today is the day I would send a card via mail. But, he will be out of town on the 15th, so, I am going to forgo the card and make a post about Finn Juhl's house and dedicate it to my parents. I feel so modern.
Ordrup, the suburb of Copenhagen where the house lies, is a lovely bike ride from the city center that starts on the main road by my apartment, runs through the edge of the truly dense area, drops out onto a coastal bike path before turning inland through shady wooded roads. The entrance to the land is inconspicuous though there is a sign with Finn Juhl's picture marking the road. As I rode in, I thought I was entering a little forest as the road narrowed and eventually brought me to a courtyard where the where two extremely different yet cohesive buildings sit. The first one I noticed was a very estate-y structure that houses the Ordrupgaard art collection and rotating exhbitions.

The other building is an addition designed by Zaha Hadid and the "New Architecture in Copenhagen" has it just right when it says, "The experience of space is a key feature of the new annex, which both harmonizes and contrasts with the fine old house(Ordrupgaard Museum)..." And harmony would be an understatement when talking about how the building interacts with the landscape. It rises out of a hillock covered in messy crasses like a capsule of shaped, black coal to rest in the tree-ringed meadow that characterizes the whole site. The wild grasses sway in rhythm with their own reflections in the glazing, the trees have a double too, crystal clear, but darkened by the shadow cast by the black scarf of concrete that holds the structure together. Materially the addition is so different from it's surroundings and maybe it's the contrast that makes it so perfectly appropriate--it looks like it has always been there.

Once inside I discovered that I was cleverly coordinated in color choices that allied well with Mr. Juhl's. I asked some other visitors to take my picture in Juhl's Pelican chair.

The annex featured a retrospective of Juhl's furniture. As an architect, Juhl was most interested in creating a Gesamtkunstwerk wherein he designed everything in the home from the building to carpets, to cutlery to collanders. I can identify with that desire. Can you imagine getting to design every last detail? That would be a task where I would certainly be channeling both parental influences. Wow, I think I would start with the dish-ware. Ok, enough fantasizing and back to the real life fantasy of a room full of chairs designed by Finn Juhl. If it had been allowed to take pictures, I would have surely filled my 1-gig card to the limit, this room was so juicy and full of amazingly hand-crafted wood frames dressed in leather and wool cushions of colors that crayola has long forgotten.

After getting scolded for one photo, I resorted to drawing. On the right is a picture of Juhl lounging blithely, enjoying his hand-work, no doubt. On the left is a drawing of desk chair I:4. It was designed for the NY Museum of Modern Art's International Furniture Competiton of 1948. I chose to draw this one because written on the schematic was a description of the chair, "very light, stack easily and can be put together by an ordinarily-witted person," that made me laugh out loud. Danes hold a lot for common sense and people seem to have a bit of it here. But, I guess when going abroad, Juhl thought he better think more liberally about his audience and state the obvious.

I wish I could show pictures of the inside of his house, but again, no pics aloud. However, I do have this now and then comparison--the "then" is from poster featuring a picture of the house from many years ago. The house is extremely simple, L-shaped and designed to bring in light, but keep out the cold. Wherever possible Juhl maximized natural light in subtle ways using small windows, glazed dividers between rooms and a generously livable floor plan that emphasizes views into the garden. The second current photo on the comparison is a section of one side of the house. I included it because I am just a sucker for sections of house-shaped houses.

The entrance to the house deserves a bit of attention, too, though it does very little to draw attention to itself. That is, on first glance. The blue and yellow are signature Juhl colors that add a playful character to the otherwise simple white-wash exterior. The overhang is low, very much appropriate to the scale of the house and the other houses in the area. I never get sick of humble entries that betray the contents of the house--simple, elegant, functional, unpretentious.

So, back to Mom and Dad. Mom, I think you would really enjoy Juhl's creative, thoughtful choices of color and his attention to subtle details. Dad, I think you would enjoy the sheer livability of the modest, comfortable, yet elegant home. And I think you would both appreciate the incredible composition that all of the wonderful parts come together to make, only when combined as they are.

So, that was one LONG mother's day / father's day post. There is a website for this place but I warn you, it takes forever to load. It's definitely worth looking at, though. And I think I am ready to declare that my favorite Danish icon is not, in fact, the hot dog, but rather FJ45.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

good news // bad news

i'll start with the bad news since i can't stop thinking about it. this weekend i was at a barbeque in the park and left my camera with all the bags and thought there were enough people and was sort of careless, i guess, and now it's gone. i lost it. my film camera. actually, tyler's film camera. sorry tyler. sorry me. sorry everyone. i still have my digital and i do have two disposable cameras and the polaroid and of course, i still have my hands to draw pictures, for crying out loud, but what i really want to do is cry out loud because it's just terrible! i moped yesterday and i think i am going to get it out of my system and there will be just that much more room in my basket now for other things like a puppy or a huge piece of cake. i did check ebay, though, and it seems that film cameras are going out of style so they are easy to replace.

and now, for the good news. i scanned a ton of negatives today and i have soooo many amazing pictures to share with you. the new, june banner on the blog is me flying a flag of sadness for the camera of yesterweek but also a little teaser for all the black and white, scratched and dirty negative goodness to come. it turns out that i am not the MOST precise photographer, nor am i an excellent developing technician so, the pictures just look so darn antique i feel like have created a huge stack of old postcards. i'm tickled. that one is from the Klampenborg Beach Park designed by famous Dane, Arne Jacobsen.


ok. i checked out a bit over the weekend because i was too bummed to post anything, but that won't get me anywhere, so here is a double dose.i took a night walk last week, started out when it was dusk and everything looks so romantic. i went to go check out this one building, which i saw, but as the light dimmed and night came on, i was so taken with the blues and blacks of the sky and buildings and all the yellows of the street lights, i really took a summer rainstorm of photos. the top one is four night blues compared. and the next, well, that's just for fun.

no, it's not a nursery, or a school or anything you might suspect when you see a set of doors painted in bright, bold colors wrapping around geometric cut-out windows you find on those little boxes that kids practice putting blocks in. it's just too much. though that night light is good for some things, it's not good for avoiding flash-glare on darling shiny doors.

unintentionally i have sort of begun to grow a rat's tail. i know i am a little late on that trend but i kind of like it.

my new favorite food is liverwurst or paté or whatever you want to call it. this one is my brand. and it's surprisingly cheap. i think this container was maybe 2.50. i eat it on rye bread with cucumbers or sometimes bell peppers. so good.

flee market find + still working

got this little set of mini postcards about SYLT, an island in the North Sea, and this the darlingest cover illustration. when i was an au pair in Bremen, everyone up there talked about Sylt like a summer heaven in a mythical, dreamy way. the postcards prove that they are right. sand dunes and long stretches of tall yellow grass. the beaches are dotted with little striped tents and dingies. delicious. this edition is pocket-sized measuring about 3.5 x 2.5 and makes it easy to take the magic wherever you go.

i am making lots of progress, but still worrying about completing everything i want to make my thesis really great. i made a set of postcards entitled "worry" to purge myself of the worries. this is one of the series. the answer to my question is a resounding: YES!

JA!

so, remember when i posted that image of a postcard that said JA! in yellow and red. well, i made that to enter into a contest here at school and i just found that i won and i won 1000Euros!! hell yea. i am so excited. it was a contest to come up with images for 10 principles of sustainable cities and i wrote a text to go with. it is one of ten images that will be used in a publication, though i am not sure of the details. i will, as always, keep you posted on all news. hot diggity dog! that deserves a FANTASTISK!

national holiday

in honor of the national labor holiday, i went to the Danish Design Center to enjoy some the fabulous fruits of Danish laborers--carefully crafted wooden furniture, among them. One of the coolest parts of the museum was a little show by The Flow Market. here are some shots to give you the gist of the exhbition:



this one featuring the lovely sara Harbo as Vanna/model






there was also a space to play with wooden letter blocks. i'll be going back for more fun there.


the current front-room show was all about wood and featured this olfactory test. each vase has a unique wood scent meant to be smelled and then identified. i didn't get any of them, but they smelled great!

they also have a collection of wooden chairs that are lovely and you are allowed to sit in them. i do have to say, though, that the interactive aspect of the museum was the best part. it sort of felt like playing in a furniture store. however, the designs featured are pretty banal and ubiquitous for most Danes because much of Danish design is made available on the market here, and people's homes are filled with the stuff featured at the DDC. for that reason, i think the Centre might benefit from a re-envisioning of their mission. last night i was at a rock show and a Danish guy said that he was concerned that Danes were living in the past and resting on their historically excellent laurels rather than continuing to innovate. there is a turn of phrase to describe this sentiment: Danish design is an old chair (Danske design er gammle stolen). but from what i have observed, the Danes are not living in the past. in fact, the history of good, democratic design may have contributed to one of Denmark's most meaningful contemporary exports--a tolerant, well-educated population and a thoroughly scandinavian notion that all people deserve fair treatment, and equal opportunities. happy labor day!