Via OWI – Office for Word and Image. Photo: Vercruysse Frederik

Here are three converted churches which seem much more successful than most of the examples in the last post. Above is a 19th century chapel in the Flemish village of Bazel which has been converted into 2 loft-type houses. Thanks to the amazing Office for Word and Image OWI for permission to reprint this photo here – Verne is the photographer. When a church is divided into separate storeys, the space seems to become automatically easier to live in. This seems obvious now but when I set out it seemed a shame to alter the building so radically. As it turns out, though, a 30-40′ cathedral ceiling is not exactly cosy. 

Above, a converted church in Kensal Green, London, via casa sugar and lightlocations. 

A conversion in Brisbane, from desire to inspire. Very, very shiny! The solution to the problem of churchiness here has been to make everything a uniform white, and I can sympathize with that solution. My experience with hanging art in a church space is that it can look a little odd when it flanks arched windows, and that’s why in my little church, the art is still on the floor, stacked against the walls. The more photos of church conversions I look at, the more challenging the whole project seems. If anyone has a favourite church conversion can you send it on?

Probably everyone and his/her dog has seen this NYC loft apartment by now, and possibly also blogged about it, but this is one of those places that is so hypnotizing I can’t stop looking at it. It’s on the top floor of a former industrial building on Broadway in NYC and not surprisingly it belongs to an architect couple. It is filled with Jean Prouvé and Hans Wegner furniture among other beautiful things, but it’s the beautiful diamond-patterned Berber rug and the striped pillows that make it. There’s something about these minimalist, monochomatic stripes and geometries that produce a mesmerized quasi-autistic trance, while at the same time they are also pleasingly reminiscent of the traditional striped textiles of both Sweden and Greece. Modernism’s long-standing relationship with simple agrarian-based weaving is not surprising. Without the wood and textiles this would just be another cool – even cold – white loft.

Via OWI.