Watching Bond the other night, I was stunned by the furnishings in this office. I’m not sure if the guy is a SPECTRE agent or just a businessman, but I am sure that I adore the decor. More photos here.

While working out material questions, one polished lamp appeared from the plastic samples to become the first in a new line of pendant lamps. More to come, hopefully. Installing LEDs will be my finishing touch on these white doves.

Found ladder, paint, laser. DUMBO offered the ladder as discarded. I actually hid it in a construction lot for over a week before bringing it in for renewal. Very little was done to the ladder; the worst spots of flaking paint were removed before new paint went on. The relief structures on the surface of the ladder are visible. A laser cut the sharp line through the ladder’s space, thus the stripe. Functions as a bookcase or point-of-sale display for accessories.More pics here.

The Seagram Building.

This thing was 20 years ahead of its time… maybe more. Mies van der Rohe’s design included a few notable obsessive elements…

The building was designed to have NO ornamental embellishment, but after looking at the most reduced form of his skyscraper he chose to include the small vertical I beams… just because the facade didn’t look right without them.

Ever looked at a tall building and seen the randomness of the curtains, drapes and blinds… Mies stipulated that the blinds only be left in one of three positions… open, closed or halfway.

The building’s exterior is made of bronze, and the color and character of the patina is amazing… timeless… but this wasn’t just chance. Bronze will rust in some climates so Mies had the window crews periodically wash the entire facade of the building in lemon juice… the acidity of which is perfect for the bronze…

Also the most expensive skyscraper in the world when it was built

A. James Speyer says it so well… “The inescapable drama of the Seagram Building in a city already dramatic with crowded skyscrapers lies in its unbroken height of bronze and dark glass juxtaposed to a granite-paved plaza below. The siting of the building on Park Avenue, an indulgence in open space unprecedented in midtown Manhattan real estate, has given that building an aura of special domain. The commercial office building in this instance has been endowed with a monumentality without equal in the civic and religious architecture of our time….The use of extruded bronze mullions and bronze spandrels together with a dark amber-tinted glass has unified the surface with color….The positioning of the Seagram Building on the site and its additive forms at the rear, which visually tie the building to adjacent structures, make for a frontal-oriented composition. The tower is no longer an isolated form. It addresses itself to the context of the city.”

More photos here

These lamps are by-products of the process used to create the Cnidarian lamp/light. Starting with the concept of a melty-molten lamp, the design process itself became molten, flowing like melting plastic. Several plastics were auditioned, and some of these held promise of their own beyond the Cnidarian project. Be ready for spinoffs.