"We consciously aimed for simplicity - in planning, use of light and air, building organization and circulation - because it is our expereicne that simplicity leads to economy, efficiency, and improved performance."

- Thomas Phifer and Partners
















"We really seek to open buildings up again…to nature and to the sun, to the sound of the wind; to bring back that sense of nature which is part of architecture.” via ArchDaily interview here


"Thomas Phifer and Partners is recognized for its distinct transformation of modernism. The essence of timeless buildings—simplicity—is achieved through thoughtful responses to the natural environment, study of the human ecology of the site, and a search for appropriate modes of construction, which dictate the forms, spaces, and appearance of buildings. The firm believes that every structure should occupy a harmonious place within its surroundings by balancing human needs and environmental imperatives. This book explores all of Phifer’s major commissions, including Salt Point House in New York, Salt Lake City Courthouse, and his most recent achievement, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, which opens in April 2010. "


above images are selected from Thomas Phifer and Partners site here...







-------------------------------

The Entry Way

captivated
blues.

"Italian architect Ettore Sottsass designed a spectacular home for a Belgian gallerist. The house is like a small city, with centrally a huge cage where the owner has his favourite birds. On the side of the birdhouse are the different night-and dayrooms of the family. On the top floor there is a large kitchen and dining room, almost like a restaurant. Although the house is huge and the rooms very spacious, Sottsass created a cosy, bohemian feeling atmosphere."

"I design places to be in and, even if existence is not definable, I know a few recurrent motifs: for instance, to look out of the window, to see the sun going through it or filtered by a veranda, to live in high or low rooms, wide or narrow doors, corners to shelter in without having to look outside, to possess a terrace to grow plants on, to go long or short distances - places that don't tell you what they are or places where you just look.

I try to design them so that the people living in them can be aware of these different moments."

There is something so captivating about this home that Ettore Sottsass designed
for this gallerist. I could stare at this entry way for hours.

Natural light, mingling with fluorescent wall lights, upon the blue stone that cascades as if the room was underwater.











-------------------------

house
on the
horizon.
































house on the horizon.
1. alex katz
2. house lamp by utohmus. here.

"It seems to me that the more you find out, the more questions there are;
the more you know, the more unknown things become..."

-Gregor Schneider

Gregor Schneider

"Schneider dislikes explaining his work. He very seldom gives interviews. Long silences fall: his mouth hanging open and empty as he hunts for the right words. You can well imagine the interview that got him out of National Service in the Army - they asked him how he had been spending his time and he tried to tell them about his interest in walls. Even his smile looks upside down.

In his work - in Dead House Ur, for instance, or in his still-to-be-fulfilled “room in which to die” - he is interested, he says, “in the unknown: in the hidden places which I can no longer feel or hear or smell”.

“I wanted to find the point when my art was surrounding me completely but, at the same time, I could no longer recognise it... I wanted to look at the moment that a dying person ceases perceiving. I wanted to think about that transition point. It seems to me that the more you find out, the more questions there are; the more you know, the more unknown things become. And what is more unknown than death?"

taken from article here..

""Making is a higher form of thinking," claims Gregor Schneider, who began to "make" art as an adolescent. So urgent was his desire to be an artist that, in order to pay for the materials he needed to make his sculptures, he even worked as a gravedigger. Introverted, self-effacing, and a close observer of human behavior--with a particular passion for the lowliest of social categories--Schneider has developed an all-absorbing identification with his work, living together with it night and day in an apartment he soundproofed from the rest of the world. Schneider has tried his hand at film, painting, and sculpture, but most remarkable is the installation he created between 1985 and 1994, in his home. There he built rooms within rooms, walls in front of walls, doors that led nowhere and windows that opened onto dead spaces. When questioned about his motivations, he would defiantly proclaim, "I can't do anything else."

from amazon here..



(listen to burger and voigt here...) via motel de moka..

Portrait of a weekend retreat.
(house:woods) Pt 1.

"My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight.
I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from
the structure of stories and from language."
-Italo Calvino

"Think in the morning.
Act in the noon.
Eat in the evening.
Sleep in the night. "
William Blake

(Brion Nuda Rosch)
Time (Space) Through the Woods, 2009, Collage

the forest. gearing up for a creative retreat. a mind lapse.

(top two images images by lisa ringborg andjohn arsenault)

blake rayne....
see his work here..

Paradise is an idealized place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and idleness. It is often used in the same context as that of utopia.



jack pierson...
see more of his work here..

Faith is often used in a religious context, as in theology, where it almost universally refers to a trusting belief in a transcendent reality, or else in a Supreme Being and said being's role in the order of transcendent, spiritual things.




Howard Finster
1916-2001
look here..

"I do messages, for the spiritual people that believes in my messages, to try to help people to take care of the world, get it back in shape, I do messages on peace among men, I done a big message on world-come-together, I been preaching on things like that for several years."




"One day I had a vision to go full-time on my art and lay everything else aside. I was out on the porch looking down toward the road, and there was a man standing at the gate about fifteen feet tall, and his head was big as a refrigerator. He was familiar to me, I’d met him before, but I couldn’t think of his name to save my life. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I finally said what I say to the other customers, “What can I do for you, sir?” and he said, “You can get on the altar.” And that surprised me. I been preaching forty years, what does he mean? I asked him, “Did you say, ‘Get on the altar?’” and he said, “Yeah, get on the altar.” And when he said that he went down to a normal man, just looking over the top of the gate. And after that went away I said, “Lord, what does this mean?” The Lord said, “If you want to be pretty big in the art work, just reach on out there and go full-time. If you just want to go on and do art part time, you can be a little guy like you are.”







"And one day I was workin' on a patch job on a bicycle, and I was rubbin' some white paint on that patch with this finger here, and I looked at the round tip o' my finger, and there was a human face on it... then a warm feelin' come over my body, and a voice spoke to me and said, 'Paint sacred art."

read more of this interview here.....