Not a rhetorical question. This is a hodgepodge sample, for sure, and spans decades, but all of it seems to partake of some form or other of adventurousness. It’s possible I’m projecting, and that my view of Australia is entirely filtered through my childhood fixation on that girl in National Geographic who crossed the outback on camels. But I doubt it. Above are from the National Archives of Australia appearing in the Heide Museum of Modern Art’s exhibit Modern Times: the untold story of modernism in Australia. Top: ‘A modernist vision of Australia: Grant and Mary Featherston’s wing sound chairs were a feature of the Australian Pavilion, designed by architect James Maccormick with exhibits selected by Robin Boyd, at Expo 67 in Montreal, 1967′ and ‘View of the elevated restaurant, Centenary Pool, Brisbane’ by James Birrell. Most images below are from desire to inspire, the half-Australian blog. House directly below is the Wheatsheaf House. House in woods below by Drew Heath; room with screen, photo by Lucas Allen; geometric bedroom by Greg Natale; provenance of last 3 photos is lost, please advise; last photo is room by Marion Hall Best, considered the mother of modern Australian interior design.

Cynthia Maxwell, who is not only a mechanical engineer who has just finished a PhD on “Sound Synthesis from Shape-Changing Geometric Models” at Berkeley and has been part of the audio group at Apple and has worked for NASA, she also has a great eye and a sense of humour. Her blog, on her website House of Bits (she’s in computer science so that’s apparently a double entendre) is called Some Bits: a decent way to waste time) and it’s an interesting and informed compendium of design – fashion, interior, graphic, architectural and many others. She is obviously busy. How did she have time to find things we hadn’t?

Aladdin chairs by Claesson Koivisto Rune; Casa en los Tuliperos, Chile, by architect Gonzalo Mardones Viviani;  knitwear by Tim Ryan; sideboard by Formstelle; Chinese porcelain crumpled beer cans; meh flask. And if you want to know what’s in her personal cacti collection… here.

The Cave Room (above), the Projection Room, and the Xanadu Room (below) are from “The Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating,” 1973, by Barbara D’Arcy. D’arcy was famous for her wild display rooms actually constructed inside the Bloomingdales store in New York in the 1960s and 70s. All her rooms had the classic 60s emphasis on lounging, pleasure, boldness, and an appeal to the senses that bordered on the psychedelic or the mind-altering – they were an Experience. But there was also a DIY component to D’Arcy’s approach. Many of the room elements were not expensive to build or buy, and that’s because most of her displays were directed at the “Saturday Generation” demographic, which she describes (in a tone that’s only funny because it’s so of its time) in a way that makes it sound a lot like the readership of Apartment Therapy or the current DIY movement in general, to which many of us probably belong:

The Saturday Generation. That’s what we call them at Bloomingdale’s, but they’re everywhere – all over the country, all over the world. We call them the Saturday Generation because they fill our stores on Saturdays. They’re young, they’re vital, they’re hardworking. And Saturday is about the only day they have to shop. 

Maybe you’re a member of The Saturday Generation. If so, we know you… Some of you are just starting out in your profession. You may have a roommate, you may be newly married, you may live in a bachelor pad. You’re informed, you’ve got taste (usually more taste than money, right?) and as far as today is concerned, you’re with it. (Click below for more…)

See also a nice post on this book from buildmeanest, which we first read as “build a mean nest.” Which also works, especially in this case.

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