Hui | January 19, 2010

Perhaps because of the iconic status of the tower, Goldstrom democratizes the pictures by putting the tower near the side of less importance. The clock tower building is there, as we unconsciously move around it and psychologically marginalize its relevance to our life. When most Brooklynites’ sensibility are overtaken by their sense of existence, Goldstrom paints the landmark within, and reminds us that the beauty can be observed and enjoyed. [Read More...]

Category: Architecture, Art, Artist | 1 Comment »
Tags: Brooklyn Flea, Robert Goldstrom, Williamsburgh Saving Bank

Geo | August 28, 2009

There are many frames in the world that have been repainted with gold radiator paint. Sometimes it can be removed to reveal original gilding, but I have found this process to be somewhat frustrating. You have to move very quickly so the solvents don’t take the gold with the paint. Another option is to add new gold.
Yes, [...]

Category: Architecture, Other Topics | No Comments »
Tags: frames, Gold leaf

Geo | July 22, 2009

I have often thought the large bronze of once Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) President Samuel Rea looked lost behind a concrete pillar at Two Penn Plaza in New York. It’s bad enough being a former president of a company that doesn’t exist anymore and having an elaborate bronze made for a monumental building that was, in [...]

Category: Architecture | 3 Comments »
Tags: Bronze, Farley Post Office, Penn Station, Samuel Rea

Geo | July 19, 2009

Chicago Hotelier Bertha Palmer is said to have coined the phrase “fashion is fleeting, but style is eternal.” In Pittsburgh the definition of fleeting may be a little longer than in Palmer’s Chicago and to a New York observer, styles in Pittsburgh may certainly have seemed at times to verge on the eternal. If there’s one truism that runs through art, architecture and the decorative arts in Pittsburgh it’s that new styles were adopted later than in other cities.

Category: Architecture | No Comments »
Tags: Baker's Mansion, Picnic House, Pittsburgh. Greek revival

Geo | July 16, 2009

The photographer Ernst Haas criticized the act of copying as an act of losing the self. In art, however, the need for constant revolution in design can lead only to a series of fleeting fashions. If what was done before us is constantly thrown away, there isn’t much hope in our creations having a reach [...]

Category: Architecture | No Comments »
Tags: Bromo Seltzer, Campenile, Charles M. Schwab, Harry Thaw, Italy, Madison Square Garden, MetLife Tower, Riverside, Stanford White

Geo | June 25, 2009

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House is for sale. Heavily damaged by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and labled “most endangered” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the house was the last and largest of four homes that Wright designed in an experimental “textile block” style. It was used in a number of films including the [...]

Category: Architecture | No Comments »
Tags: Frank Lloyd Wright, House on a Haunted Hill, Vincent Price

Geo | June 3, 2009

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner joined former first lady Nancy Reagan this morning for the unveiling of a statue of 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
The Reagan statue is now part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, which is [...]

Category: Architecture, Artist | No Comments »
Tags: Chas Fagan, Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan, U.S. Capitol

Geo | June 3, 2009

Amelia Peck, Curator of American Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art gave an insightful talk Tuesday on the American Period Rooms at the Met from their inception through the present renovations.Peck said the renovation and reopening of the American period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art not only allowed for a better flow through [...]

Category: Architecture, Art, Museum | No Comments »
Tags: Amelia Peck, American Wing, DeForrest, Emily, Halsey, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Geo | May 21, 2009

On my first visit to the reopened American Wing at the Met, I walked past rooms from Richmond, glass from Pittsburgh and pottery from Cincinnati. Nothing in the exhibit that day struck me as much as a Louis Sullivan staircase from Chicago, however. Perhaps with American on the mind, this was because there’s no place more [...]

Category: Architecture, Artist | No Comments »
Tags: American Wing, Chicago, Louis Sullivan, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Geo | May 12, 2009

The Art Institute of Chicago is celebrating the May 16 opening of its new Modern Wing with a week of free admission. The 264,000-square-foot Renzo Piano-designed addition is the largest expansion in the museum’s history.
The Modern Wing increases the museum’s size to more than a million square feet, making it the second largest art museum [...]

Category: Architecture, Museum | 1 Comment »
Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, Renzo Piano