“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
~Anna Quindlen, “Enough Bookshelves,” New York Times, 7 August 1991. This room is in Mildred’s Lane, the Pennsylvania artist’s colony that J. Morgan Puett and partner built over many years. Thanks to kellylynnwaters for the photo, which is originally from J. Morgan Puett via pjb.
Frank Lloyd Wright built Fallingwater on a boulder-covered site, but the giant rocks beneath and around that well-known house are not nearly so graphic or madly visible as they are in these houses. Some of these structures were deliberately built on or around boulders, whether for aesthetics, site preservation, or protection; others incorporated the rocks simply because the rocks could not be moved from the only available building spot. Portugal and Spain are full of boulder architecture, and so are many erratic-strewn desert regions where imposing rocks can provide shelter from the sun or wind. In colder climates where rock expands and contracts with the seasons, much of this architecture is not possible, but if I could get a boulder inside my living room, I would. The house above is in Phoenix; the three photos directly below show architect Albert Frey’s own house in Palm Springs (two of those photos have appeared here before; I keep going back to them).
Below, in order: Klein Aus Vista in Namibia, by iciblancheneige; Stone house in Fafe, Portugal, by Jsome1; Rock House, Koh Samui, Thailand, by msharkie; house in boulder-strewn Monsanto, Portugal, by Txumu; house at Cliff Dwellers, Arizona, by davduf; Hairy Bobbo’s handcarved house, 18th C hermitage in Yorkshire, by Nekoglyph. Click on each photo for more information.
Photos are all from the 1975 edition of Inside Today’s Home by Ray and Sarah Faulkner, Holt Rinehart Winston. (The 1954, 1960 and 1968 editions of this book are all worth collecting too, if you can find them on abebooks.) The word ”today” somehow sounded more optimistic then than it does now, though of course back then you did have the bomb to consider. The book’s collection of photos is pretty eclectic but it’s all held together by a romance with the idea of the new. Authors Ray Faulkner, Professor of Art and Architecture at Stanford and Sarah Faulkner, a trained interior designer, wanted the book to function as both an academic text and as a coffee table book, so it’s an interesting mix of both DIY and historical information. Most of the photos are black and white, but there’s also a small selection of good colour plates. The bathroom above is by Charles Gwathmey; the airy stucco pool house and pony wall below are by architect Charles Moore.
Japanese-influenced bedroom and open plan house, above, are by architect Paul Rudolph. If you click on the photo directly above there’s a great story in the comments by a member of the Paul Rudolph Foundation.
“Zome” solar houses by the Zomeworks Corporation, which is still in operation. One hopes it will revisit the solar house idea. “Zomes” opened during the day to admit sun, and closed at night to retain heat.
Ann Margret as Nora Walker Hobbs in Ken Russell’s 1975 film “Tommy”. This scene, not to mention the whole film, was absolutely formative for me (and apparently I’m not alone). It opens with a drunk Nora watching TV in her all-white glam boudoir; on the screen is an ad for baked beans, “Fit For A Queen.” Nora throws a champagne bottle through the TV set, soap suds and baked beans pour out into the white bedroom, and she writhes, laughing, in the surreal, psychedelic mess.
See Hilly Blue’s excellent collection of film stills at Flickr.
There’s something compelling about this photo of the bedroom of novelist Marguerite Duras in the house she bought in Neauphle, outside Paris, in the 1960s. The thin cot bed is so peculiar, like something she might have grown up with during her impoverished colonial childhood in French Indochina, now Vietnam. It’s a surprising bedroom for someone with such a life-long history of brilliant lovers. Duras loved to decorate, according to this account of her life and loves: Duras’ Paris “apartment at 5 rue Saint-Benoît was Marguerite’s universe, filled with her family photos, her bunches of dried flowers, her beautiful shining furniture, her broken stove, her shawls draped over the backs of shabby armchairs, loose parquet, the smell of rose petals. She was a talented DIY enthusiast and she entertained several times a week.” She was apparently a charming hostess as well as a radical agitator, such a nice combination. This photo’s origin is now forgotten, but it is most likely Nest Magazine. Oddly, I have an eerily similar carpet in the studio, in only marginally better shape. And what is that wrapped package under the bed?
