Icons: Le Corbusier in Paris: 1953

Willy Rizzo photographs the master at work. Via Fondation Le Corbusier and Design Milk.

Flashback: 1966: Karin Dor

Via the modern love tumblr.

Happy Birthday to the legendary Isamu Noguchi

Via Phillips de Pury's facebook.

Icons: Domus pays tribute to Gae Aulenti

It is truly something special when one icon pays tribute to another. In this case, Gio Ponti's Domus pays a loving tribute to the late Gae Aulenti, one of Italy's most influential architects and designers of the past century:

From the many times her work graced the pages of Domus, we've chosen to republish two projects Aulenti designed for Olivetti in the 1960s. Beyond the virtuous association of the names Aulenti-Olivetti, the pieces republished today are especially enriched by a vivid photographic survey, where the interiors in Paris and Buenos Aires reveal a smiling, charming Gae Aulenti, exactly how we wish to remember her.

The article "The new Olivetti show-room in Paris" was originally published in Domus 452 / July 1967
The article "The new Olivetti shop in Buenos Aires" was originally published in Domus 466 / September 1968

My favorite feature is the design of the door handles in the Buenos Aires showroom. Each handle is a sculpted brass hemisphere, and when the doors close, the sphere completes.

See the full story with the project details here.

Daily Dose: Ready for winter: Noyes House, 1955

Eliot Noyes' courtyard with Alexander Calder sculpture, as captured through the lens of George Silk for Life Magazine.

Via the Modern Love Tumblr.

Farewell: Gae Aulenti

World-renowned Italian architect Gae Aulenti, whose creations include the transformed Musee d'Orsay in Paris, has died at her home in Milan at the age of 84, her family said Thursday.

Aulenti, who had been ill for some time, had made her last public appearance only two weeks ago to receive an award in recognition of her life's work.

"My mother had been ill for a long time but she resisted as best she could," her daughter Giovanna told La Repubblica newpaper, announcing Aulenti's death on Wednesday.

Among her large-scale museum projects, Aulenti transformed the former Parisian railway station into the Musee d'Orsay in the 1980s and refurbished the contemporary art gallery at the Pompidou Centre in the French capital.

Born in December 1927, Aulenti was one of the few women designers in the post-war period in Italy. She also worked as a stylist and interior designer and taught in several foreign countries.

Read more here.

Above is Aulenti with her Pipistrello table lamp of 1966. Below, her 1962 Sgarsul rocking chair. Photos via city-furniture.

Watch: Maria Pergay: Place des Vosges

A conversation with the incredible Maria Pergay, the Parisian designer whose stainless steel and brass furniture defined the ultimate in 1970's French chic.

From Nowness:

From a 17th-century perch on the re-glamorized Place des Vosges in Paris, hip-again furniture designer Maria Pergay briefs filmmaker Pamela Hanson on why her seductive 70s metal minimalism feels so at home on the parquet. Pergay, who occupies a rarefied niche between interiors and contemporary art, began as a window dresser for couturiers and has designed limited-edition furniture and commissioned decor since the 60s. Both her new and early pieces remain in demand, and she is being recognized this year with a Légion d’honneur. To celebrate the 55th anniversary of her career, Pergay co-organized a retrospective in the French capital with galleries Demisch Danant (New York) and JGM (Paris), where she arranged a sampling of work from the past five decades into one living environment. The sculptural cabinets, seats and side tables reveal the designer's ability to revitalize traditional boiserie with highly polished metalwork that folds back like the exquisite leaves of a “jardin sécret.” Turning her camera towards the decorative details of the showroom, Hanson flips us through a catalog of Pergay’s most recent collection, while the artist shares what inspires her with gallerist Suzanne Demisch.

Via Demisch Danant's facebook.

Happy Birthday Julius Shulman

The legendary architectural photographer was born this day in 1910.

Icons/Creative Spaces: Irving Harper at Home: by Herman Miller

From Herman Miller's wonderful Why Design series, Irving Harper (formerly of George Nelson Associates) explains his passion for paper sculpting.

Icons: Françoise Hardy, Thomas, and Eames. Circa 1973.

Françoise Hardy, Thomas, and Eames. Circa 1973.

Also see this previouslovely photo of her on her Eames Lounge.

Via Modern Love on Facebook and City-Furniture.

Watch: House of Finn Juhl

House of Finn Juhl from Thorsten Dreijer on Vimeo.

A great video tour through the home of the legendary Finn Juhl.

For some great photos and a background on the history this house, be sure to see my previous post: Finn Juhl's House.

Watch: Classic Spaces: La Maison de Jean Prouvé

Watch this great short film on documenting the story of Jean Prouvé and his house.

Watch: The Newest Trailer for Coast Modern

A film that will take you on a journey through three generations of modern architecture on the West Coast of North America.  From LA to Vancouver, a legacy of inspired living by the pioneers of West Coast Modernist Architecture.

From Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra's 1920s Hollywood, through to the second wave of post WWII America to today's current modernist renaissance.

This film speaks with the architects and their patrons and asks if Modernism’s time has finally come or did it ever really go away.

From filmmakers Michael Bernard and Gavin Froome.  Via Coast Modern's facebook.

Bones Brigade's Rodney Mullen speaks at TED

Speaking on how context shapes creative content, Rodney Mullen has joined the illustrious ranks of TED presenters, which has included Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, educator Salman Khan, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners[5]. TED's current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.

From pedestrian:

Rodney Mullen, skater, human Inception token, stopped by the TED-xUSC event in Southern California last month to discuss how communities enrich the individual, skateboarding as a valid mode of expression, and why creative struggles can induce invention (in his case combining flatland with street skating). Then he attempts to explain what a darkslide is to guys who invent health algorithms. LOL. Generous, intelligent and very well articulated. 

From an article by Andrew Sayer at Push:

It's crazy that an eccentric skateboarder can now stand amongst these elite minds and not seem out of place in the least. Rodney deserves the praise.  "What do skateboarding and innovation have in common? More than you might think. A successful entrepreneur and innovator, Rodney Mullen is widely considered the most influential street skater in history, inventing most of the tricks used today. By the time he was 23, Mullen had already set new milestones for skateboarding winning 35 out of 36 freestyle competitions. He studied engineering at the University of Florida before co-founding World Industries, the largest skate company of the 90's, which was acquired for more than $20m. He continues to skate, innovate, and design some 30 years after he won his first world championship at the age of 11. Mullen spends his spare time thinking about open source communities, hacking the urban terrain, and transforming the mundane into something new. He'll be featured in the upcoming documentary, "The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography."

Watch: “A chair is not just a seat – it is the key to the whole interior"

A wonderful short documentary film about Ilmari Tapiovaara, featuring the creation of his iconic Mademoiselle chair, originally produced by Asko, and now produced by Artek.

DVD Length: 12 minutes
Artek Production 2012

Classic Spaces: 1940: Franco Albini's Milan Apartment

Rare 1940 photos of Franco Albini's Milan home. The one-off sailboat inspired bookshelf-prototype from 1938 acted as a space divider until it collapsed. It has now been meticously re-constructed and reproduced by the technicians of Cassina. Via L'Esprit Nouveau.

Flashback: Kate Moss in the 90s

Photos via ilovewildfox.

Below is Kate Moss interviewed by photographer David Bailey for his 1998 "Models Close Up" documentary.  An icon in the making.

Icons: Charles Eames: Sea Shell

Photographer unknown (was it Ray?).

Via the Modern Love Tumblr.

MUST Watch: The Bertoia

Beautifully shot and directed, watch this amazing and touching short-film by Steven Sebring, documenting the re-installation of Harry Bertoia's masterpiece sculpture inside Gordon Bunshaft's masterpiece building 510 5th Avenue, New York (see my previous feature here).

Starring Joe Mimran and Val Bertoia, with appearances by Michael Boodro, Jim Elkin, and Francois Guillemin.

Via Alexandra Robson, via Joe Fresh.

Icons: Happy Birthday Mies!

In honor of the maestro's birthday, Life has republished photographs from a 1957 photo essay titled “Emergence of a Master Architect.” The feature that ran in the March 1, 1957 issue of LIFE, at the same time that the architect’s signature achievement — the 38-story Seagram Building on Park Avenue in New York — was nearing completion.
See the photos here.