Gitane, San Francisco

Gitane, San Francisco more work from Mr. Important. Opulent ! This from the designers who created Vanity Night Club which has appeared on this blog before.

Images Mr.Important // photos by  Jeff Dow

Vanity by Mr Important

I have posted on Vanity Night Club in Las Vegas but I couldn't let this little film of the club pass.


Vanity Nightclub- Mister Important Design from Mister Important on Vimeo.

Mix your shop up

 I have always been a fan of mixed up retail. You know the type we Irish used to do so well like a Pub- Grocer- Funeral Director business where you could have a few pints then buy a half pound of tea and some rashers for when you got home and all this from the same pub.

I've been to a few strange mixed shops but one that stands out was a hairdresser - denim shop - vintage vinyl record shop in Spitalfields London. In the coiffure section you sat at vintage dressing tables to have your "do" done. The "dos" were all post Hoxton Fin and asymmetric fringes.  The dressing tables were from different decades 20's 40's and 50's, very cool. The basement was home to the denim and vinyl records with ABBA playing on a little Dancetron set on the floor.

The LeCool group have catalogued these mad little shops in London and other cities

Mat Osmon of LeCool describes the London book thus

"It's for people who love the city, People who love scooter shops that turn into coffee shops, and flats with aeroplane wings through them, and manga libraries, and doll's house furniture shops, and bubble-and-squeak stalls, and hairdressers-cum-art galleries-cum-nightclubs, and rollergirls, and so on and so on .

So if its for people who love the city, any city then it's for me.

There is a LeCool Dublin Website but this lists events rather than places. Maybe its time to catalogue Dublin's more eccentric shops.

Which one would you put at the top of your list? I know a lot of my readers are not from Dublin. Let me know of the quirky places where you live?

With corporate multinational similar streets you just don't get a mix up, a shop where you could  buy some boots and buy a painting. Let me know if your thinking of getting one off the ground.

Interactive counter top.

I came across this interactive counter top on the  FX News YouTube Channel. A great idea for Night Clubs. I have started a collection of films on lighting effects on my own YouTube Channel. The link is there on the side. The office is really busy at the moment with projects on site coming to completion. So hopefully soon I will have some photos up to let you know what we have been up to.

Return of the Grande Dame

I'm in need of a little glamour to ward off the heralds of Irish financial doom.
London's Savoy Hotel which the first and grandest of London's great hotels has re-opened after a £220m makeover. It had been closed since December 2007. The American bar at the Savoy was where Cocktails were first introduced to Britain, the Savoy Cocktail book is still in print. Noel Coward was a regular here and other stars of the golden age of cinema included Errol Flynn, Fred Astaire and Marlene Dietrich. Monet painted his Thames scenes from his hotel room balcony at the Savoy. Perhaps the true sign of its pedigree is that its first manager was Cesar Ritz and we know which hotel he ended up founding.

Designer Pierre-Yves Rochon has done a fantastic job throughout the hotel but the piece de resistance has to be the fantastic environment that is the Beaufort Bar. Rochon has handled himself adeptly I love the whole dark look, black and gold. An apparent budget of £20,000 for black silk velvet curtains must have helped and to line the alcoves with gold leaf cost a mere £38,000. 

Photo Linda Nylind

Photo Niall Clutton

Photo Linda Nylind

Photo Linda Nylind

Photo Linda Nylind

Photo Niall Clutton

Photo Linda Nylind

Photo Linda Nylind

Photographs: Linda Nylind for The Guardian and Niall Clutton

The 'Fay' in Fayetteville...

Today I am delighted to feature a guest blogger and old colleague of mine. Richy Mc Cusker has been keeping his own blog Custard by Design for some time and keeps us up to date with all aspects of his design life in Arkansas. Here Richy takes us on a journey of his design influences and features the work of one of Frank Lloyd Wrights apprentices.

She went from Galway to Graceland to be with the King, and I went from Armagh to Arkansas to be with herself, Fayetteville precisely.

I always knew as a child that I wanted to do something related to buildings, I guess looking back that influence was heavily inspired by the domineering presence of the twin spires of St Patrick's Cathedral and the surrounding architecture my hometown presented to me.

Armagh Cathedral

I loved to be able to say my hometown boasts some of the finest examples of Georgian architecture outside Dublin.

I then grew to love and admire the same features other cities that I have been fortunate to have lived in offered through studying interior architecture in Edinburgh, and carving a career in Dublin.

The medieval and Gothic facades of Edinburgh's old town and winding closes, the order and structure to the Georgian new town, and the modern injections of architects like Richard Murphy or indeed the new Scottish parliament building weaved modern trajectories into these very different sides of Scotland capital.

From Scotland's capital to Irelands capital, Dublin again had so much to offer, from the Georgian grandeur of the north side to the Victorian splendor of the south side, bustling with the energy of a nearly dying Celtic tiger when I first moved there, Dublin was fast becoming a destination for architects on the global front to make their mark.

Now I find myself in Fayetteville, Arkansas, US of A, the place I now call home, and the hometown I also happen to share with Alistair Cragg.

This is my wife's hometown, and when we decided to move here we moved here with the thoughts of aiming for the bright lights that cities like New York or Washington DC or Atlanta might offer us, yet we had the “lets see what happens” attitude. Having fought a hard fight against the recession in Dublin, we found ourselves very lucky to quickly find work here in North West Arkansas, so, settled in the job, settled in the new ways of married life and everything that it has to offer - a new house, new paint swatches picked and living rooms and bedrooms painted and a wish list for the kitchen and the bathroom, and a puppy to boot - it was time to sit back and take in my surroundings and look to the buildings and the form that surrounds me.

So many of the buildings around boasted a familiar style, familiar detailing, something that told me I knew who designed this, yet I couldn't point a finger at a name.

It was while I was in attendance at a recent wedding, I was so in awe at the church (Thorncrown Chapel), that I came home and did my research and was led to discover a lot about E. Fay Jones.

Fay Jones is a noted American architect and designer and he was an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, hence the familiarity in the detailing. Born in Pine Bluff, AR, Fay Jones grew up in El Dorado, AR, but spent a significant amount of time in Fayetteville, where he studied at the University of Arkansas, and later became the first Dean of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture. He continued to work out of his small office here in Fayetteville and was a resident of Fayetteville until he died in 2004 at 83.

Fay Jones

Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, the Mildred B. Cooper chapel in Bella Vista, and the J. William Fulbright Memorial Peace Fountain on the University Campus were probably his most locally known works, but Jones also designed some incredible private residences in and around Fayetteville that some consider to be some of his best work.

Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, AR.

Jones numerous creations include buildings, homes, chapels, dormitories, sculpture, and occasionally furniture. His influence can be found all over Fayetteville, from the Peace Fountain on the University Campus, to the Kappa Sigma building on Dickson St, to the residences on Mount Sequoia, Skyline Driveand other areas around town. His buildings have become a part of Fayetteville’s identity, and Jones work somehow has both captured and shaped Fayetteville’s personality.

This is one of my favourite quotes about his works,

“The work of Fay Jones is a local treasure. He was a thinker and architect that developed and engaged a keen sense of how to live and build in the Ozarks to create intelligent, beautiful, and relevant architecture which is rooted in, and draws inspiration from, nature and place. He ultimately elevated the presence of Northwest Arkansas and the University to a national level and no one should pass on an opportunity to experience one of his brilliant buildings.”

Chris Baribeau, AIA of Modus Studio in Fayetteville

One of my favourite images I found while researching this article is the breakfast room in a nearby house. Everything pieces so well together, and like many of the fittings in the churches he designed, Fay Jones designed the light fitting for the breakfast room below.

I've walked past this house many times, and vied for the chance that someone might be going in or coming out so that I might grab their attention and weave my interest into the conversation and be invited in for a mug of coffee or a cold beer.

I still havent given up. I'm away off for a walk. Thanks Box7 for the invitation.

Set Design 2001 Space Odyssey

I've written about film set design before. We all enjoy a good film and sets and production design have always fascinated me. On Stanley Kubricks 2001 Space Odyssey   Anthony Masters was responsible for making Production Designer Harry Lange's design concepts a reality and he was given an Oscar nomination for his efforts. More than a hundred model makers assisted him and the other members of the art crew. Lange also worked on designs for the Bond films. The clip below is fantastic. Illuminated floors, the black obelisk, the red space suit all stand in strong contrast to the Louis XVI room interior with its huge scale. The whole interior has a timeless quality. The music is by Samuel Barber.Turn up your speakers and enjoy.


For more on film set design see previous post

Taxidermy and Interior Design

Taxidermy was evident at the London Design Festival with Alex Randal exhibiting at Tent. Randal whose back ground is in fine art makes bespoke lighting pieces using stuffed animals. She had her nearly infamous Rat Swarm light on display. I haven't posted it here but its worth a look at it on her site. It's a controversial piece. Our dinner out on the Friday night of the festival drew my thoughts again to taxidermy. We ate at Les Trois Garcons and in a restaurant stuffed with taxidermy ( excuse the pun ) our table was located beneath a wall mounted Giraffes head.

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Polly Morgan is an artist  who not directly connected to the London Design Festival uses taxidermy in her installation pieces. Her work is strange spooky and beautiful and I have included some images below.

My own opinion on Taxidermy ? It's fascinating if slightly macabre and it conjures up images if Victorian drawing rooms filled with heavy air. It also suggests clutter and the antithesis of the modern movement in architecture and design. If we view it as an interior design element it provides a great contrast to all that is new. To me these pieces are more about curating than design although stuffed animals have been an interior design element for a long time. The artists state that they source their raw material from road kill or animals that have died of natural causes. 

Polly Morgan

 Polly Morgan

 Polly Morgan

Alex Randal light

Alex Randal light

Alex Randal light

Interior Design at the Tramshed

Last Saturday morning was spent at The Tramshed in Shoreditch. De la Espada took much of the ground floor. They are also agents for Autobahn who had some fine wire base standard lamps on show. Wire based pieces were ubiquitous during the festival with some lovely pieces on show at 100% Design by Decode. A little brief today as the office is very busy, But enjoy the pictures which are via De la Espada.

These sofas were very cosy. The perfect comfort stop for a  Saturday morning.