1950s Archives | Ouno Design

The Hitler Youth haircut: what it’s actually expressing

LB — Tue, 27 May 2014 01:18:58 +0000

Update: this feels all the more pressing now, since this US election. If you want to hear Chomsky’s post-election comments on white male entitlement and rage, it’s here.

BC Hydro now and then – what happened between 1955 and 1991?

LB — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:22:53 +0000

“Compare and despair” is good advice, but I can’t help it. Here are two skyscrapers designed for the same public corporation, BC Hydro.

John di Castri, wooden “Trend House,” Victoria

LB — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:47:05 +0000

John di Castri is one of Victoria, BC’s best known architects. This house seemed strangely familiar to me, and then I discovered that di Castri had left Victoria for Oklahoma to study for three years with Bruce Goff (see Goff’s influence here).

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Ned Pratt, Vancouver architect

LB — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:28:15 +0000

Vancouver architect Ned Pratt produced work in an era that—from the standpoint of our developer-led moment—is quickly starting to look like a golden age. Pratt and Arthur Erickson along with their contemporaries Ron Thom and Fred Hollingsworth still rank among Vancouver’s best and most influential architects.

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Horizon Hotel, Palm Springs

LB — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:34:31 +0000

William Cody, Architect, 1952. From the standpoint of the rainy temperate rainforest, desert landscaping is so seductive, so distant, so taunting. Red cactus soil, and an agave growing through the roof, and a boulder.

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Furniture makers of Middle Earth

LB — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:10:57 +0000

I find this Todd Merrell Antiques magazine ad weirdly compelling. If you end up at his website (now defunct) it’s like being transported into Middle Earth or the underworld. You might have to retrieve an amulet with the help of a talking dog with eyes as big as saucers or something.

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Chan family house in 1950s Vancouver

LB — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:55:07 +0000

These photographs are from my husband grandparents’ house, a blue Edwardian two-storey that still stands in Strathcona, Vancouver’s oldest residential neighbourhood. The house is less than a block away from our studio and very close to where we both live.

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The ladies of 20th century furniture design were offered to pose on fur rugs or ponies, which is why, we suppose, that photo was never to be.

LB — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:12:10 +0000

Left to Right: George Nelson, Edward Wormley, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames and Jens Risom

Photo from a 1961 Playboy article on 20th C “masters of design,” who are here dressed either as accountants or architects, it’s hard to tell which, but it’s a lot of zippers.

Elsbeth Kupferoth

LB — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:11:37 +0000

Fantastic 1970s geometric supergraphic textile by German designer Elsbeth Kupferoth, who deserves to be much better known. Interesting short essay on her work and more photos at The Textile Blog.

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Canadian Coconut chair, the election, and Margaret Atwood

LB — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:43:00 +0000

“Electoral reform.” That’s our comment on yesterday’s Canadian federal election. On this dark day in Canadian politics, when a majority of Canadians couldn’t put a stop to the tyranny of a minority, here’s a nice photo of a famous piece of Canadian design.