JS LIVING BY DESGN: Neoclassical Athens

DESIGN: LIVING BY DESIGN- DUBAI PART 1

ARCHITECTURE: Basilica Papale San Paolo fuori le Mura Rome

TRAVEL/ARCHITECTURE: ROME

DESIGN: Soho, London

ARCHITECTURE: Peter Zumthor

Architecture I admire.. 

DESIGN: Mustique Part 1.

John Stefanidis Drawings to build from - Mustique, Caribbean.

ARCHITECTURE/LIVING BY DESIGN: Wardour Castle

Old Wardour Castle.

New Wardour Castle.

Jasper Conran lives here in understated grandeur, pared down decoration in this late eighteenth century masterpiece by James Paine. 

A house full of light and air untrammelled by decoration too whimsical or traditional. 

A house that goads you to happiness!

TRAVEL: Kuwait

Kuwait - a country of 2.7-3 million people, the eighth richest country in the world with a GDP of $58,080. There are plans afoot for a new Norman Foster designed airport and a Dubai 'catch-up'. It has a new skyscraper by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, a firm whose designs, despite all the awards it has received, I have always considered 'middle of the road' and safe. The skyscraper is stunning. 

A mall, miles long, has become the high street of Kuwait City. Acres of marble, escalators that lead to a wide pedestrian street of buildings, an architectural mix that escapes being Disneyland, shop after shop from Harry Winston to Victoria's Secret, Harvey Nichols, H&M, Tom Ford - you name a world brand it is there interposed with terraced restaurants of every culinary tradition. Daylight pours in from a vast glass roof, all deliciously air-conditioned. Behind all this are streets and alleyways evocative of old Kuwait, more shops and restaurants, and a café that plays the legend, Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum continuously. 

(Listen to her on my choice for BBC 4's Desert Island Discs, blog post 04/07/2010 and Youtube)

Aperçu: Seventy percent or more of the women were veiled, half wore the floor length black dara with a hijab headscarf and many, very many, wearing face veils so that only their eyes and saucy eyebrows are exposed. (A common sight is ladies who lift their veils with their left hand and feed with their right)

LIVING BY DESIGN: Boudin

Stéphane Boudin, who died in 1967 was the President of Maison Jansen the Parisian Interior Decoration firm founded in 1880. 

Mrs Charles Wrightsman - Palm Beach Living Room

Famous in England for the decoration of Leeds Castle in Kent for Lady Baillie and Henry Channon in Belgrave Square., London, SW1 - in the USA for his work for Jacqueline Kennedy at The White House, Washington DC, and the fabled philanthropist Mrs Charles Wrightsman, in Palm Beach and New York


Classical style, rigorous with emphasis on the best French furniture, very good pictures, beautifully bound books and 'objets de vertu', created a luxurious, unmistakable atmosphere of sophistication. 

Perpetuated by Henri Samuel who started his career with Boudin and became the doyen of this high style for decades.

LIVING BY DESIGN: Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid's talent simmered for years and then there was an explosion of buildings thanks be to an architects who is both innovative and a life enhancer. 

ARCHITECTURE I Admire: Santiago Calitrava

Felipe Science Museum, Valencia

Concert Hall, Seville

Milwaukee Art Museum, USA

TRAVEL: Rome 2013-2014

How do you like the new Pope? "....siamo contenti [we are content].

White Lights garlanded narrow streets from wall to wall. The Corso had waves of rainbow lights extending its full length of 3 miles or more.  Hordes of Romans, mainly from the suburbs [hardly any tourists], mostly dressed in black, sat on the Spanish Steps and promenaded down Via Condotti, the Corso - a constant stream going to the Piazza Navona, invaded by booths of a Christmas fair - the Bernini fountains swamped.  Friendly, happy throngs exuding bonhomie. Italy in crisis - applying new taxes - but nothing seems to dampen the Italian love of life.

 

MICHELANGELO

ART I Admire: Jake & Dino Chapman

I have not been a fan of the Chapman brothers - too facile, too many distorted amalgams, Goya too much in evidence, the tiny figures in great piles - the horror of Armageddon...........BUT Jake and Dino Chapman's show in the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery** was a revelation, particularly the hand-coloured etchings. The installation is inspired.  Please go and come to your own conclusions.

http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/jake-and-dinos-chapman-come-and-see

**The Zaha Hadid 'Magazine' restaurant attached is elegant, crisp, and airy

LIVING BY DESIGN: Oliver Messel

Retired in Barbados because of ill health, this famous costume and set designer was instrumental in building the first houses in Mustique in theatrical, colonial style - ideally suited to the Caribbean - using stone and cement in the most imaginative way. 
I was frequently a guest on the island and went to Colin Glenconner's parties.  After Oliver's demise, I worked on the Great House and subsequently Alumbrera (see next week's blog) 

The Great House, Mustique designed by Oliver Messel

Princess Margaret at Colin Glenconner birthday party

'The Red Shoes' with Moira Shearer

Messel belonged to a generation who was not afraid of prettiness, nor indeed of colour, as was proved in the movie 'The Red Shoes' with Moira Shearer - his designs have lost none of their clarity and freshness, even more so in 'Caesar and Cleopatra' with Claude Rains as Caeser and the ravishing Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra. 

Daphnis & Chloe

This 1940's approach was also manifest in the Frederick Ashton [wit and charm personified] Ravel ballet 'Daphne & Chloe' [1951], danced by Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes, with costumes and decor by John Craxton. The ballet was recreated in 2004 (when I saw it) and it had a lucidity and clarity reminiscent of Ancient Greece, of mythology, far from today's blighted country now held to ransom.