why are things so boring now?

Paul Rudolph’s Modulightor House

May 25, 2009

Paul Rudolph’s Modulightor House

I first found out about the architect Paul Rudolph after posting an image of one of his other houses, and reading a response to it by Kelvin Dickson of the Paul Rudolph Foundation.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

When “today” had the ring of “tomorrow”

May 17, 2009

When “today” had the ring of “tomorrow”

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.

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Bloomingdales 1970s display rooms by Barbara D’Arcy

May 11, 2009

Bloomingdales 1970s display rooms by Barbara D’Arcy

More photos from “The Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating,” 1973, by Barbara D’Arcy. These displays –  a Japanese room, a psychedelic red room and a room done in a sort of wild Tudor hunting lodge style – were built inside Bloomingdales in the late 60s or early 70s.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Joe Colombo

April 24, 2009

Joe Colombo

Joe Colombo, 1930 – 1971, a prolific Italian architect, designer, artist and filmmaker, produced a substantial, instantly recognizable body of work before dying far too young at 41.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Taking the indoor/outdoor look to new levels

April 9, 2009

Taking the indoor/outdoor look to new levels

This gets points for adventurousness and imagination and magic, if not success. It’s another image from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Circa 1968

Circa 1968

More far out interiors from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Houses like spaceships, spaceships like houses

January 11, 2009

Houses like spaceships, spaceships like houses

Bathroom futurism! Excellent circular spaceship thing going on here. I’m not sure about shag rugs in the bathroom, but will boldly go where no one has gone before. Still, how on earth would you clean this room?

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The Saturday Generation

December 5, 2008

The Saturday Generation

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.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Official Montreal ’76 Olympics poster that would never pass a committee now

November 18, 2008

Official Montreal ’76 Olympics poster that would never pass a committee now


Poster by Raymond Bellemare for the Canadian Graphics and Design Directorate (Graphisme et Dessin) of the Organizing Committee of the 1976 Olympic Games, Montreal

Only 32 years have passed since this fantastic official poster for the 1976 Montreal Olympics was produced, but from a 2008 vantage point it’s hard to imagine how a committee ever okayed it.

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