In Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre it looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's lavish work.

James McNeill Whistler lavishly decorated the Peacock Room — an actual London dining room — for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland in 1876.

Next door, in the Sackler Museum of Asian Art, painter Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix" looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor. "The shelves are all broken," Waterston says. "The gold gild is either melting off or puddling on the floor."

Filthy Lucre' Is A Modern Remix Of The Peacock Room's Wretched Excess 'Filthy Lucre' Is A Modern Remix Of The Peacock Room's Wretched Excess Listen· 7:267:26Queue Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/408226983/408407242" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email May 21, 20153:34 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Susan Stamberg James McNeill Whistler lavishly decorated the Peacock Room — an actual London dining room — for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland in 1876. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian hide caption toggle caption Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian An artist has just converted a legendary piece of 19th-century art into an utter ruin. And two Smithsonian institutions — the Freer and Sackler galleries of Asian art — have given their blessings. The Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery is an actual dining room from London, decorated by James McNeill Whistler in 1876. Its blue-green walls are covered with golden designs and painted peacocks. Gilded shelves hold priceless Asian ceramics. It's an expensive, lavish cocoon, rich in beauty with a dab of menace. Freer security guard Shaquan Harper spends hours at a time in the Peacock Room — and says it's a peaceful, meditative experience. "Blue is my favorite color, and whenever I wear jewelry it's gold," he says. "So I kind of make a personal connection with the room. This is one of my favorite galleries in the Smithsonian." "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into. ... You have no sense whatsoever of the outside world. It's a world in which art has completely overtaken life." Curator Lee Glazer Curator Lee Glazer agrees that the Peacock Room is a completely immersive experience. "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into," she says. The Peacock Room is a gorgeous, gilded cage. "You have no sense whatsoever of the outside world," says Glazer. "It's a world in which art has completely overtaken life." It was shipping magnate Frederick Leyland's world. It was created in the Victorian era when self-made men with new fortunes were buying their way into British society through fine houses and important works of art. Whistler paints his wealthy patron as a golden peacock, at one end of the dining room. Nearby, another peacock — representing the "poor" artist. "They're actually in a face-off," Glazer says. Article continues after sponsorship Fighting, for reasons to be revealed in a bit. It's a dispute about art and money — although Whistler named the room Harmony in Blue and Gold. Next door, in the Sackler Museum of Asian Art, painter Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix" looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor. "The shelves are all broken," Waterston says. "The gold gild is either melting off or puddling on the floor." Enlarge this image In Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre it looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's lavish work. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery In Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre it looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's lavish work. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery The original room feels claustrophobic in its excess. The remix feels scary as if there's been an earthquake and another tremor is coming any minute. "There's a sense of danger," says Waterston. He seems cheerful and sweet, but don't be fooled: "My work absolutely has a perversity," he says. "There's always an underbelly to it." Enlarge this image Shards of smashed Asian vases litter the floor of Waterston's Filthy Lucre. Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery Shards of smashed Asian vases litter the floor of Waterston's Filthy Lucre. Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery Here, Waterston says he wanted to show the volatility of beauty. The big, cancerous, gilded cysts he's blobbed onto Whistler's reproduced golden shelves, the spilled paint oozing onto the rug — these are his reactions to what's happening between art and money these days. "This is what it means to be a living artist in this contemporary art world," Waterston says. "It is so filled with excess and this incredible consumption, this insatiable consumption of the object and of aesthetics." The most vivid, even yuck-making example is what Waterston's done to Whistler's two golden peacocks; in this remix, the birds aren't just fighting, they're eviscerating each other. They're "literally disemboweling each other," he describes. "One has the other's entrails being pulled out — talons are out." The golden peacocks in Filthy Lucre are "literally disemboweling each other," Waterston says. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery They hate each other's guts! Which is exactly what happened between Whistler and Leyland. The patron asked the artist to just make some modest adjustments in his new dining room. Glazer says Whistler put a few wavy dabs of gold paint here, some metal color there, "and everyone was very happy with that." Leyland and his family left London for the summer. And that, Glazer says, is when Whistler's imagination took flight. He transformed the room, covering every surface with blue and gold paint. He worked like a madman. "Whistler talks about being up on the scaffolding at 6 in the morning and not coming down until 9 at night," says Glazer. " 'I'm blind with sleep and blue peacock feathers,' he says." He kept his friend and patron more or less informed about what he was doing: "All through the summer Leyland received letters from Whistler talking about the gorgeous surprise that Whistler was preparing for him and the family," Glazer explains. Well, Leyland comes home, sees the extent of work — and the 2,000 pounds that Whistler wanted to be paid for it (about a quarter of a million dollars today) — and, as they used to say in Victorian days: Leyland blew a gasket. In the middle of the dispute, with Leyland paying half of what Whistler requested, the artist went back to the dining room to finish up. "And that was really when he exacted his vengeance," says Glazer. Enlarge this image James McNeill Whistler's mother — immortalized in his 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother — worried about all the time and energy her son was pouring into the Peacock Room. "A gentleman's house isn't an exhibition," she told him. Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images James McNeill Whistler's mother — immortalized in his 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother — worried about all the time and energy her son was pouring into the Peacock Room. "A gentleman's house isn't an exhibition," she told him. Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images He painted those fighting peacocks — the just-plain-angry ones, not Waterston's gut-wrenching birds — and laid on even more blue paint. Then Whistler left, and never saw the Peacock Room again. Now, we can't end this story without talking about Whistler's mother — that iconic profiled figure in gray and black. What did Mama Whistler think of the whole thing — the frenzied work, the manic effort? Glazer reports that Anna Whistler was worried about her son; she thought he was working too hard, not eating, not sleeping: "She chides him about that and says, 'You know, Jimmy, a gentleman's house isn't an exhibition' — meaning: Get out there and make some money and make some things that are going to sell," says Glazer. "And so, always listening to his mother — Whistler was kind of a Momma's boy — he did invite the press in to watch him work in the Peacock Room." Yet another thing he forgot to tell Frederick Leyland! The results of this delicious dispute can be seen on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — at the Freer, site of the original Peacock Room, and the Sackler, where Filthy Lucre, Darren Waterston's remix, is on display until January 2017.

'Filthy Lucre' Is A Modern Remix Of The Peacock Room's Wretched Excess 'Filthy Lucre' Is A Modern Remix Of The Peacock Room's Wretched Excess Listen· 7:267:26Queue Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/408226983/408407242" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email May 21, 20153:34 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Susan Stamberg James McNeill Whistler lavishly decorated the Peacock Room — an actual London dining room — for shipping magnate Frederick Leyland in 1876. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian hide caption toggle caption Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian An artist has just converted a legendary piece of 19th-century art into an utter ruin. And two Smithsonian institutions — the Freer and Sackler galleries of Asian art — have given their blessings. The Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery is an actual dining room from London, decorated by James McNeill Whistler in 1876. Its blue-green walls are covered with golden designs and painted peacocks. Gilded shelves hold priceless Asian ceramics. It's an expensive, lavish cocoon, rich in beauty with a dab of menace. Freer security guard Shaquan Harper spends hours at a time in the Peacock Room — and says it's a peaceful, meditative experience. "Blue is my favorite color, and whenever I wear jewelry it's gold," he says. "So I kind of make a personal connection with the room. This is one of my favorite galleries in the Smithsonian." "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into. ... You have no sense whatsoever of the outside world. It's a world in which art has completely overtaken life." Curator Lee Glazer Curator Lee Glazer agrees that the Peacock Room is a completely immersive experience. "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into," she says. The Peacock Room is a gorgeous, gilded cage. "You have no sense whatsoever of the outside world," says Glazer. "It's a world in which art has completely overtaken life." It was shipping magnate Frederick Leyland's world. It was created in the Victorian era when self-made men with new fortunes were buying their way into British society through fine houses and important works of art. Whistler paints his wealthy patron as a golden peacock, at one end of the dining room. Nearby, another peacock — representing the "poor" artist. "They're actually in a face-off," Glazer says. Article continues after sponsorship Fighting, for reasons to be revealed in a bit. It's a dispute about art and money — although Whistler named the room Harmony in Blue and Gold. Next door, in the Sackler Museum of Asian Art, painter Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix" looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor. "The shelves are all broken," Waterston says. "The gold gild is either melting off or puddling on the floor." Enlarge this image In Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre it looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's lavish work. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery In Darren Waterston's Filthy Lucre it looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's lavish work. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery The original room feels claustrophobic in its excess. The remix feels scary as if there's been an earthquake and another tremor is coming any minute. "There's a sense of danger," says Waterston. He seems cheerful and sweet, but don't be fooled: "My work absolutely has a perversity," he says. "There's always an underbelly to it." Enlarge this image Shards of smashed Asian vases litter the floor of Waterston's Filthy Lucre. Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery Shards of smashed Asian vases litter the floor of Waterston's Filthy Lucre. Amber Gray/Freer Sackler Gallery Here, Waterston says he wanted to show the volatility of beauty. The big, cancerous, gilded cysts he's blobbed onto Whistler's reproduced golden shelves, the spilled paint oozing onto the rug — these are his reactions to what's happening between art and money these days. "This is what it means to be a living artist in this contemporary art world," Waterston says. "It is so filled with excess and this incredible consumption, this insatiable consumption of the object and of aesthetics." The most vivid, even yuck-making example is what Waterston's done to Whistler's two golden peacocks; in this remix, the birds aren't just fighting, they're eviscerating each other. They're "literally disemboweling each other," he describes. "One has the other's entrails being pulled out — talons are out." The golden peacocks in Filthy Lucre are "literally disemboweling each other," Waterston says. Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery hide caption toggle caption Hutomo Wicaksono/Freer Sackler Gallery They hate each other's guts! Which is exactly what happened between Whistler and Leyland. The patron asked the artist to just make some modest adjustments in his new dining room. Glazer says Whistler put a few wavy dabs of gold paint here, some metal color there, "and everyone was very happy with that." Leyland and his family left London for the summer. And that, Glazer says, is when Whistler's imagination took flight. He transformed the room, covering every surface with blue and gold paint. He worked like a madman. "Whistler talks about being up on the scaffolding at 6 in the morning and not coming down until 9 at night," says Glazer. " 'I'm blind with sleep and blue peacock feathers,' he says." He kept his friend and patron more or less informed about what he was doing: "All through the summer Leyland received letters from Whistler talking about the gorgeous surprise that Whistler was preparing for him and the family," Glazer explains. Well, Leyland comes home, sees the extent of work — and the 2,000 pounds that Whistler wanted to be paid for it (about a quarter of a million dollars today) — and, as they used to say in Victorian days: Leyland blew a gasket. In the middle of the dispute, with Leyland paying half of what Whistler requested, the artist went back to the dining room to finish up. "And that was really when he exacted his vengeance," says Glazer. Enlarge this image James McNeill Whistler's mother — immortalized in his 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother — worried about all the time and energy her son was pouring into the Peacock Room. "A gentleman's house isn't an exhibition," she told him. Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images James McNeill Whistler's mother — immortalized in his 1871 painting Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother — worried about all the time and energy her son was pouring into the Peacock Room. "A gentleman's house isn't an exhibition," she told him. Detroit Institute of Arts via Getty Images He painted those fighting peacocks — the just-plain-angry ones, not Waterston's gut-wrenching birds — and laid on even more blue paint. Then Whistler left, and never saw the Peacock Room again. Now, we can't end this story without talking about Whistler's mother — that iconic profiled figure in gray and black. What did Mama Whistler think of the whole thing — the frenzied work, the manic effort? Glazer reports that Anna Whistler was worried about her son; she thought he was working too hard, not eating, not sleeping: "She chides him about that and says, 'You know, Jimmy, a gentleman's house isn't an exhibition' — meaning: Get out there and make some money and make some things that are going to sell," says Glazer. "And so, always listening to his mother — Whistler was kind of a Momma's boy — he did invite the press in to watch him work in the Peacock Room." Yet another thing he forgot to tell Frederick Leyland! The results of this delicious dispute can be seen on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — at the Freer, site of the original Peacock Room, and the Sackler, where Filthy Lucre, Darren Waterston's remix, is on display until January 2017.

these are his reactions to what's happening between art and money these days.

Here, Waterston says he wanted to show the volatility of beauty.

"This is what it means to be a living artist in this contemporary art world," Waterston says. "It is so filled with excess and this incredible consumption, this insatiable consumption of the object and of aesthetics.

"This is what it means to be a living artist in this contemporary art world," Waterston says. "It is so filled with excess and this incredible consumption, this insatiable consumption of the object and of aesthetics."

The original room feels claustrophobic in its excess. The remix feels scary as if there's been an earthquake and another tremor is coming any minute. "There's a sense of danger," says Waterston. He seems cheerful and sweet, but don't be fooled: "My work absolutely has a perversity," he says. "There's always an underbelly to it."

'Filthy Lucre' Is A Modern Remix Of The Peacock Room's Wretched Excess

Next door, in the Sackler Museum of Asian Art, painter Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix" looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor.

Next door, in the Sackler Museum of Asian Art, painter Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix" looks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor.

Filthy Lucre

Filthy Lucre

The Peacock Room is a gorgeous, gilded cage. "You have no sense whatsoever of the outside world," says Glazer. "It's a world in which art has completely overtaken life."

Curator Lee Glazer agrees that the Peacock Room is a completely immersive experience. "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into," she says.

So I kind of make a personal connection with the room. This is one of my favorite galleries in the Smithsonian."

"Blue is my favorite color, and whenever I wear jewelry it's gold," he says. "So I kind of make a personal connection with the room. This is one of my favorite galleries in the Smithsonian."

An artist has just converted a legendary piece of 19th-century art into an utter ruin. And two Smithsonian institutions — the Freer and Sackler galleries of Asian art — have given their blessings.

1876-77, James McNeill Whistler altered the décor of the London dining room of his patron Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner who used the room’s wall shelves to display his vast collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light. The result was one of the most intoxicating decorative ensembles in the world: “Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,” which, since 1923, has been the star attraction of the Freer Gallery, a museum rich in Asian and Islamic art, in Washington, D.C. Charles Lang Freer, an American railroad-car manufacturer and globe-trotting connoisseur, bought the room, after Leyland’s death, from a London dealer, in 1904, and had it installed at his home, in Detroit. Upon Freer’s death, in 1919, his will endowed the Freer Gallery, which opened, four years later, as the first of the Smithsonian art museums. Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics, which he left to the museum. For two years, they will replace the room’s usual, limited number of blue-and-white pieces similar to Leyland’s. The effect is wonderful.Leyland and his wife, Frances, championed Whistler in England. (She is the subject of my favorite of his paintings, “Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink,” from 1871-74, which is now in the Frick.) Their dining room was already superb. The gifted architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll had lined it with latticed walnut shelving, in a style that was notionally Oriental, to accommodate Leyland’s porcelains, and had hung, over the fireplace, his early Whistler painting of a celebrated beauty of the day, Christina Spartali, as “The Princess from the Land of Porcelain” (1864-65). Leyland agreed to pay Whistler a thousand guineas to emend Jeckyll’s scheme, but later, unconvinced of the job’s worth, he delivered the sum in the lesser denomination of pounds. Whistler, infuriated, then painted a satirical mural, in the finished room, representing the artist and his patron as warring peacocks. The Leyland bird is pompous and hectoring, with a breast of gold and platinum coins, windmilling wings, and an immense explosion of tail feathers; the Whistler bird poignantly droops, raising one wing in feeble defense. Leyland lived with this burlesque until his death, in 1892, but his relationship with Whistler had ended in 1879—as had his marriage to Frances, perhaps partly owing to her at least emotional closeness to the artist. Further ancient gossip holds that Thomas Jeckyll was driven mad by Whistler’s overhaul of his design, but it seems that the architect’s mental illness was organic. (He died in an asylum, in 1881.)Where Jeckyll had envisioned a sun-dappled Chinese pavilion—with walls covered in embossed and floral-patterned, bright-yellow leather—Whistler contrived a chamber of the night. He closed the room’s three sets of tall shutters, and painted them and the walls Prussian blue and resonant blue-greens, gilded the shelving, covered the neo-Gothic ribbed ceiling (nearly fourteen feet high) in overlapping petals of Dutch metal (brass oxidizing to green and gold), and filled every incidental surface with freehand abstract patterns and images of peacocks in gold and blue. The whole plainly anticipates Art Nouveau, but without that style’s rote longueurs. It realizes a synesthetic fusion of dazzling spectacle and intimate touch, evoking music and something like a subliminal, ambrosial perfume. Seeing the room as the reinstallation was being completed, with the shutters open, I got to gauge the impact when they were closed. It was like the onset of a deep bass chord out of Wagner. Illuminated by eight pendant ceiling fixtures (which I wish could be gaslights again, as they were in 1877), the room seemed at once to fall asleep and to come fully alert, vividly dreaming.Freer’s highly varied, largely age-worn authentic pots are better art than Leyland’s china, which was, for the most part, export ware from the Kangxi period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The uneven textures and faded iridescence of Freer’s collection yield a modulation of tones that makes up for the wonted éclat of the glossy blues and whites. The arrangement of the pieces is random, without regard for provenance. Sheer sensibility, innocent of scholarship, was Freer’s ideal, as it had been Whistler’s—a solvent for the exoticism of Eastern cultures as they challenged Western imaginations. In the room’s artificial but passionate paradise, East is West, and vice-versa, without the slightest whiff of either sentimentality or condescension.Whistler is ever more interesting. He was quite as modern as his friends among the French Impressionists, though he took a different tack from their common sources in the vehement realism of Courbet and the Spanish revivalism and dandyish urbanity of Manet. (Whistler’s immature painting in the Peacock Room retains harsh contrasts of light and dark, unsuited to his talent, from those precedents.) Nearly all the most adventurous artists in Whistler’s generation responded avidly to Japanese aesthetics. Of course, Impressionism’s radical embrace of atmospheric color initiated modern art. Whistler’s only somewhat less audacious tonalist nocturnes and portraits—with paint like “breath on the surface of a pane of glass,” he boasted—devolved, through emulation by mediocre followers, into emblems of nouveau-riche gentility. Impressionism led to van Gogh and Cézanne; Whistlerism to William Merritt Chase and Thomas Wilmer Dewing—pandering to English and American collectors who were nonplussed, if not appalled, by the rapid-fire innovations on the Continent.Whistler missed the express train to modernism when he moved from Paris to London, in the eighteen-sixties, and set up as a bad-boy darling of high society—suing John Ruskin for a negative review, volleying zingers with Oscar Wilde, and, having taxed the Victorians’ scant indulgence of self-promoting upstarts, becoming a frequent laughingstock. But, for a great spell that peaked in the Peacock Room, he achieved a unity of avant-garde spirit and civil decorum which, like other abandoned experiments from the artistic laboratory of the late nineteenth century—now that modernism is defunct—newly excites.The amazing keynote of the

n 1876-77, James McNeill Whistler altered the décor of the London dining room of his patron Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner who used the room’s wall shelves to display his vast collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light. The result was one of the most intoxicating decorative ensembles in the world: “Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,” which, since 1923, has been the star attraction of the Freer Gallery, a museum rich in Asian and Islamic art, in Washington, D.C. Charles Lang Freer, an American railroad-car manufacturer and globe-trotting connoisseur, bought the room, after Leyland’s death, from a London dealer, in 1904, and had it installed at his home, in Detroit. Upon Freer’s death, in 1919, his will endowed the Freer Gallery, which opened, four years later, as the first of the Smithsonian art museums. Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics, which he left to the museum. For two years, they will replace the room’s usual, limited number of blue-and-white pieces similar to Leyland’s. The effect is wonderful.Leyland and his wife, Frances, championed Whistler in England. (She is the subject of my favorite of his paintings, “Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink,” from 1871-74, which is now in the Frick.) Their dining room was already superb. The gifted architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll had lined it with latticed walnut shelving, in a style that was notionally Oriental, to accommodate Leyland’s porcelains, and had hung, over the fireplace, his early Whistler painting of a celebrated beauty of the day, Christina Spartali, as “The Princess from the Land of Porcelain” (1864-65). Leyland agreed to pay Whistler a thousand guineas to emend Jeckyll’s scheme, but later, unconvinced of the job’s worth, he delivered the sum in the lesser denomination of pounds. Whistler, infuriated, then painted a satirical mural, in the finished room, representing the artist and his patron as warring peacocks. The Leyland bird is pompous and hectoring, with a breast of gold and platinum coins, windmilling wings, and an immense explosion of tail feathers; the Whistler bird poignantly droops, raising one wing in feeble defense. Leyland lived with this burlesque until his death, in 1892, but his relationship with Whistler had ended in 1879—as had his marriage to Frances, perhaps partly owing to her at least emotional closeness to the artist. Further ancient gossip holds that Thomas Jeckyll was driven mad by Whistler’s overhaul of his design, but it seems that the architect’s mental illness was organic. (He died in an asylum, in 1881.)Where Jeckyll had envisioned a sun-dappled Chinese pavilion—with walls covered in embossed and floral-patterned, bright-yellow leather—Whistler contrived a chamber of the night. He closed the room’s three sets of tall shutters, and painted them and the walls Prussian blue and resonant blue-greens, gilded the shelving, covered the neo-Gothic ribbed ceiling (nearly fourteen feet high) in overlapping petals of Dutch metal (brass oxidizing to green and gold), and filled every incidental surface with freehand abstract patterns and images of peacocks in gold and blue. The whole plainly anticipates Art Nouveau, but without that style’s rote longueurs. It realizes a synesthetic fusion of dazzling spectacle and intimate touch, evoking music and something like a subliminal, ambrosial perfume. Seeing the room as the reinstallation was being completed, with the shutters open, I got to gauge the impact when they were closed. It was like the onset of a deep bass chord out of Wagner. Illuminated by eight pendant ceiling fixtures (which I wish could be gaslights again, as they were in 1877), the room seemed at once to fall asleep and to come fully alert, vividly dreaming.Freer’s highly varied, largely age-worn authentic pots are better art than Leyland’s china, which was, for the most part, export ware from the Kangxi period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The uneven textures and faded iridescence of Freer’s collection yield a modulation of tones that makes up for the wonted éclat of the glossy blues and whites. The arrangement of the pieces is random, without regard for provenance. Sheer sensibility, innocent of scholarship, was Freer’s ideal, as it had been Whistler’s—a solvent for the exoticism of Eastern cultures as they challenged Western imaginations. In the room’s artificial but passionate paradise, East is West, and vice-versa, without the slightest whiff of either sentimentality or condescension.Whistler is ever more interesting. He was quite as modern as his friends among the French Impressionists, though he took a different tack from their common sources in the vehement realism of Courbet and the Spanish revivalism and dandyish urbanity of Manet. (Whistler’s immature painting in the Peacock Room retains harsh contrasts of light and dark, unsuited to his talent, from those precedents.) Nearly all the most adventurous artists in Whistler’s generation responded avidly to Japanese aesthetics. Of course, Impressionism’s radical embrace of atmospheric color initiated modern art. Whistler’s only somewhat less audacious tonalist nocturnes and portraits—with paint like “breath on the surface of a pane of glass,” he boasted—devolved, through emulation by mediocre followers, into emblems of nouveau-riche gentility. Impressionism led to van Gogh and Cézanne; Whistlerism to William Merritt Chase and Thomas Wilmer Dewing—pandering to English and American collectors who were nonplussed, if not appalled, by the rapid-fire innovations on the Continent.Whistler missed the express train to modernism when he moved from Paris to London, in the eighteen-sixties, and set up as a bad-boy darling of high society—suing John Ruskin for a negative review, volleying zingers with Oscar Wilde, and, having taxed the Victorians’ scant indulgence of self-promoting upstarts, becoming a frequent laughingstock. But, for a great spell that peaked in the Peacock Room, he achieved a unity of avant-garde spirit and civil decorum which, like other abandoned experiments from the artistic laboratory of the late nineteenth century—now that modernism is defunct—newly excites.The amazing keynote of the Peacock Room, given its crowding with visual incident, is simplicity. Its many elements are indeed harmonic—orchestral, in effect—and resilient, as proved by the design’s unplanned hospitality to Freer’s ceramics. The occasional awkwardness of, say, a pot so big that it almost over-verges its shelf stirs a forgiving consonance in the devil-may-care brushwork on some of Whistler’s decorative panels. There is nothing finicky about the room, apart from certain features of Jeckyll’s style-conscious carpentry. I am bothered only by the caricatures in the peacock-ruckus mural. It occupies a wall that was destined for a painting, “The Three Girls,” which Leyland had commissioned but which Whistler never completed. (A tantalizing oil sketch and figure studies for the proposed masterpiece are among the Freer’s many Whistlers, the largest representation of his work anywhere.) The mural is both funny and gorgeous, but its expression of personal pique disrupts the room’s serenity like a street noise in the night. On one count, the new installation adds a new poetic charm. So interesting, individually, are Freer’s pieces that you may feel frustrated as the room’s higher shelves raise scores of them far above the reach of scrutiny. But I was put in mind of a painting by Fra Angelico in which saints and angels ascend, dancing, to Heaven. As my gaze moved upward, I rather felt that I was tagging along toward such a destination, too. ♦

“Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,” which, since 1923, has been the star attraction of the Freer Gallery, a museum rich in Asian and Islamic art, in Washington, D.C. Charles Lang Freer, an American railroad-car manufacturer and globe-trotting connoisseur, bought the room, after Leyland’s death, from a London dealer, in 1904, and had it installed at his home, in Detroit. Upon Freer’s death, in 1919, his will endowed the Freer Gallery, which opened, four years later, as the first of the Smithsonian art museums. Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics, which he left to the museum. For two years, they will replace the room’s usual, limited number of blue-and-white pieces similar to Leyland’s. The effect is wonderful.Leyland and his wife, Frances, championed Whistler in England. (She is the subject of my favorite of his paintings, “Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink,” from 1871-74, which is now in the Frick.) Their dining room was already superb. The gifted architect and designer Thomas Jeckyll had lined it with latticed walnut shelving, in a style that was notionally Oriental, to accommodate Leyland’s porcelains, and had hung, over the fireplace, his early Whistler painting of a celebrated beauty of the day, Christina Spartali, as “The Princess from the Land of Porcelain” (1864-65). Leyland agreed to pay Whistler a thousand guineas to emend Jeckyll’s scheme, but later, unconvinced of the job’s worth, he delivered the sum in the lesser denomination of pounds. Whistler, infuriated, then painted a satirical mural, in the finished room, representing the artist and his patron as warring peacocks. The Leyland bird is pompous and hectoring, with a breast of gold and platinum coins, windmilling wings, and an immense explosion of tail feathers; the Whistler bird poignantly droops, raising one wing in feeble defense. Leyland lived with this burlesque until his death, in 1892, but his relationship with Whistler had ended in 1879—as had his marriage to Frances, perhaps partly owing to her at least emotional closeness to the artist. Further ancient gossip holds that Thomas Jeckyll was driven mad by Whistler’s overhaul of his design, but it seems that the architect’s mental illness was organic. (He died in an asylum, in 1881.)

James McNeill Whistler altered the décor of the London dining room of his patron Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner who used the room’s wall shelves to display his vast collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light. The result was one of the most intoxicating decorative ensembles in the world: “Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,” which, since 1923, has been the star attraction of the Freer Gallery, a museum rich in Asian and Islamic art, in Washington, D.C. Charles Lang Freer, an American railroad-car manufacturer and globe-trotting connoisseur, bought the room, after Leyland’s death, from a London dealer, in 1904, and had it installed at his home, in Detroit. Upon Freer’s death, in 1919, his will endowed the Freer Gallery, which opened, four years later, as the first of the Smithsonian art museums. Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics, which he left to the museum. For two years, they will replace the room’s usual, limited number of blue-and-white pieces similar to Leyland’s. The effect is wonderful.

So interesting, individually, are Freer’s pieces that you may feel frustrated as the room’s higher shelves raise scores of them far above the reach of scrutiny.

Fra Angelico

Spanish revivalism

Spanish revivalism

Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics,

A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light.

Of course, Impressionism’s radical embrace of atmospheric color initiated modern art. Whistler’s only somewhat less audacious tonalist nocturnes and portraits—with paint like “breath on the surface of a pane of glass,” he boasted—devolved, through emulation by mediocre followers

The mural is both funny and gorgeous, but its expression of personal pique disrupts the room’s serenity like a street noise in the night. On one count, the new installation adds a new poetic charm. So interesting, individually, are Freer’s pieces that you may feel frustrated as the room’s higher shelves raise scores of them far above the reach of scrutiny. But I was put in mind of a painting by Fra Angelico in which saints and angels ascend, dancing, to Heaven. As my gaze moved upward, I rather felt that I was tagging along toward such a destination, too. ♦

The amazing keynote of the Peacock Room, given its crowding with visual incident, is simplicity. Its many elements are indeed harmonic—orchestral, in effect—and resilient, as proved by the design’s unplanned hospitality to Freer’s ceramics. The occasional awkwardness of, say, a pot so big that it almost over-verges its shelf stirs a forgiving consonance in the devil-may-care brushwork on some of Whistler’s decorative panels. There is nothing finicky about the room, apart from certain features of Jeckyll’s style-conscious carpentry. I am bothered only by the caricatures in the peacock-ruckus mural.

Whistler missed the express train to modernism when he moved from Paris to London, in the eighteen-sixties, and set up as a bad-boy darling of high society—suing John Ruskin for a negative review, volleying zingers with Oscar Wilde, and, having taxed the Victorians’ scant indulgence of self-promoting upstarts, becoming a frequent laughingstock.

The uneven textures and faded iridescence of Freer’s collection yield a modulation of tones that makes up for the wonted éclat of the glossy blues and whites

Further ancient gossip holds that Thomas Jeckyll was driven mad by Whistler’s overhaul of his design, but it seems that the architect’s mental illness was organic.

Where Jeckyll had envisioned a sun-dappled Chinese pavilion—with walls covered in embossed and floral-patterned, bright-yellow leather—Whistler contrived a chamber of the night. He closed the room’s three sets of tall shutters, and painted them and the walls Prussian blue and resonant blue-greens, gilded the shelving, covered the neo-Gothic ribbed ceiling (nearly fourteen feet high) in overlapping petals of Dutch metal (brass oxidizing to green and gold), and filled every incidental surface with freehand abstract patterns and images of peacocks in gold and blue.

“Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,” which, since 1923, has been the star attraction of the Freer Gallery, a museum rich in Asian and Islamic art, in Washington, D.C. Charles Lang Freer, an American railroad-car manufacturer and globe-trotting connoisseur, bought the room, after Leyland’s death, from a London dealer, in 1904, and had it installed at his home, in Detroit. Upon Freer’s death, in 1919, his will endowed the Freer Gallery, which opened, four years later, as the first of the Smithsonian art museums. Last week, the Freer débuted a temporary reinstallation of the Peacock Room, by the curator Lee Glazer, which re-creates the way it appeared in photographs from 1908—adorned not with the porcelains (Leyland’s collection was long gone by then) but with two hundred and fifty-four of Freer’s own Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Middle Eastern earthenware and stoneware ceramics, which he left to the museum. For two years, they will replace the room’s usual, limited number of blue-and-white pieces similar to Leyland’s. The effect is wonderful.

1876-77, James McNeill Whistler altered the décor of the London dining room of his patron Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner who used the room’s wall shelves to display his vast collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light.

n 1876-77, James McNeill Whistler altered the décor of the London dining room of his patron Frederick Leyland, a Liverpool shipowner who used the room’s wall shelves to display his vast collection of blue-and-white Chinese porcelains. A mania for things Asian raged in England then, in concert with the aestheticist movement—a reaction, exalting unalloyed beauty, against the moralistic constraints of Victorian taste. Whistler was the trend’s leading light.

Birds of a FeatherWhistler’s Peacock Room

Maybe it’s the English in me. My parents lived through World War II and their credo was “You make do.” People at every income level were making do during wartime. My father, ‘til the end of his life, took rolls of two-ply loo paper and made them one ply rolls. Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what’s important is life, and not aesthetics.

My Strange Love of Wabi-Sabi

There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating a Grey Gardens way of life, where you let cats piss all over your portraits and raccoons have the run of the parlor. Disrepair can be taken to an extreme. Wabi-sabi should never be a rationalization to quit trying. But we all have to let some things go.

One of the reasons I always love rehabilitating “ruined” properties is because I will not obliterate the patina of age — I honor it and respect it as a reminder of what’s truly important: A house is really only a stage for your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what’s important is life, and not aesthetics. Patina is a word that people throw around, but it’s real, in that it’s earned and should really be appreciated. One of the reasons I always love rehabilitating “ruined” properties is because I will not obliterate the patina of age — I honor it and respect it as a reminder of what’s truly important: A house is really only a stage for your life and the lives of your loved ones.

I love aesthetics as much as the next person, but don’t let them crowd out your life — don’t prioritize aesthetic order over spontaneous afternoon delight on a newly upholstered sofa or having your geriatric neighbor cruise over for chocolate fondue. Have fun and appreciate aesthetics equally, along with good food, drink, relationships, mistakes and carelessness. Appreciate repair. In the end, we’re all just stewards of property and we’re aging right along with it.

There’s beauty in survival. I’ve learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That’s wabi-sabi — embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture. There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating a Grey Gardens way of life, where you let cats piss all over your portraits and raccoons have the run of the parlor. Disrepair can be taken to an extreme. Wabi-sabi should never be a rationalization to quit trying. But we all have to let some things go. I love aesthetics as much as the next person, but don’t let them crowd out your life — don’t prioritize aesthetic order over spontaneous afternoon delight on a newly upholstered sofa or having your geriatric neighbor cruise over for chocolate fondue. Have fun and appreciate aesthetics equally, along with good food, drink, relationships, mistakes and carelessness. Appreciate repair. In the end, we’re all just stewards of property and we’re aging right along with it.

There’s beauty in survival. I’ve learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That’s wabi-sabi — embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture.

There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course

There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course

My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me.

Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they’re describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn’t have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill — rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered.

There’s beauty in survival. I’ve learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That’s wabi-sabi — embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture.

There’s beauty in survival. I’ve learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That’s wabi-sabi — embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture.

So it’s a little incongruous that I found myself practicing interior design in LA — Earth’s bastion of hyper-personal grooming and size zeros cruising around with flutes of un-drunk champagne. The décor equivalent of this Angeleno would be a monochromatic white on white living room with blonde on blonde furnishings, everything lined up and relined up, all square, with cadres of cushions and pillows fluffed and dented, coffee table art books perfectly stacked into pyramids and never cracked. And walls mirrored to maximize the impact of perfection through infinity. I never had to unlearn this style because I’ve never been fastidious, thank God. I’ve never let a warped floorboard ruin my life. My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me.

So it’s a little incongruous that I found myself practicing interior design in LA — Earth’s bastion of hyper-personal grooming and size zeros cruising around with flutes of un-drunk champagne. The décor equivalent of this Angeleno would be a monochromatic white on white living room with blonde on blonde furnishings, everything lined up and relined up, all square, with cadres of cushions and pillows fluffed and dented, coffee table art books perfectly stacked into pyramids and never cracked. And walls mirrored to maximize the impact of perfection through infinity. I never had to unlearn this style because I’ve never been fastidious, thank God. I’ve never let a warped floorboard ruin my life. My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me.

Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they’re describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn’t have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill — rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered. You can’t dance in a corner. An over-decorated/accessorized space leaves little room to do anything but sit with knees pressed together — an aesthetic that completely breaks down when your new housekeeper sprays Formula 409 on your premium art books, paintings and candles while you’re out getting your vagina re-contoured. “Perfect” interior décor can be captivating in photographs, but underlying the flawless arrangement of drapery, wallpaper and furnishings is a palpable fear of anticipation — when will this mirage of a showroom become, you know, “used?” When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait’s over. Better yet, “drop” a glass of red wine onto the rug and then grind a little foie gras into the stain immediately, so that you can get it over with and start living. If a room isn’t inviting, what’s the point? Nevertheless, people still chase those perfect rooms. (Be careful, because you can’t actually do it and it’s no fun if you can.)

When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait’s over. Better yet, “drop” a glass of red wine onto the rug and then grind a little foie gras into the stain immediately, so that you can get it over with and start living. If a room isn’t inviting, what’s the point? Nevertheless, people still chase those perfect rooms. (Be careful, because you can’t actually do it and it’s no fun if you can.)

Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they’re describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn’t have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill — rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered. You can’t dance in a corner. An over-decorated/accessorized space leaves little room to do anything but sit with knees pressed together — an aesthetic that completely breaks down when your new housekeeper sprays Formula 409 on your premium art books, paintings and candles while you’re out getting your vagina re-contoured. “Perfect” interior décor can be captivating in photographs, but underlying the flawless arrangement of drapery, wallpaper and furnishings is a palpable fear of anticipation — when will this mirage of a showroom become, you know, “used?”

When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait’s over.

My Strange Love of Wabi-Sabi By Kathryn M. Ireland Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they’re describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn’t have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill — rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered. You can’t dance in a corner. An over-decorated/accessorized space leaves little room to do anything but sit with knees pressed together — an aesthetic that completely breaks down when your new housekeeper sprays Formula 409 on your premium art books, paintings and candles while you’re out getting your vagina re-contoured. “Perfect” interior décor can be captivating in photographs, but underlying the flawless arrangement of drapery, wallpaper and furnishings is a palpable fear of anticipation — when will this mirage of a showroom become, you know, “used?” When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait’s over. Better yet, “drop” a glass of red wine onto the rug and then grind a little foie gras into the stain immediately, so that you can get it over with and start living. If a room isn’t inviting, what’s the point? Nevertheless, people still chase those perfect rooms. (Be careful, because you can’t actually do it and it’s no fun if you can.) So it’s a little incongruous that I found myself practicing interior design in LA — Earth’s bastion of hyper-personal grooming and size zeros cruising around with flutes of un-drunk champagne. The décor equivalent of this Angeleno would be a monochromatic white on white living room with blonde on blonde furnishings, everything lined up and relined up, all square, with cadres of cushions and pillows fluffed and dented, coffee table art books perfectly stacked into pyramids and never cracked. And walls mirrored to maximize the impact of perfection through infinity. I never had to unlearn this style because I’ve never been fastidious, thank God. I’ve never let a warped floorboard ruin my life. My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me. With my triple D rack and a penchant for Pinot Grigio and wearing heels and making wild hand mannerisms, I’ve been the recipient of the icy stare of any number of tightly wound hostesses. The horror in their eyes is real as I bump into a marble-topped commode, shivering a porcelain tchotchke. Maybe it’s the English in me. My parents lived through World War II and their credo was “You make do.” People at every income level were making do during wartime. My father, ‘til the end of his life, took rolls of two-ply loo paper and made them one ply rolls. Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what’s important is life, and not aesthetics. Patina is a word that people throw around, but it’s real, in that it’s earned and should really be appreciated. One of the reasons I always love rehabilitating “ruined” properties is because I will not obliterate the patina of age — I honor it and respect it as a reminder of what’s truly important: A house is really only a stage for your life and the lives of your loved ones. There’s beauty in survival. I’ve learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That’s wabi-sabi — embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture. There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating a Grey Gardens way of life, where you let cats piss all over your portraits and raccoons have the run of the parlor. Disrepair can be taken to an extreme. Wabi-sabi should never be a rationalization to quit trying. But we all have to let some things go. I love aesthetics as much as the next person, but don’t let them crowd out your life — don’t prioritize aesthetic order over spontaneous afternoon delight on a newly upholstered sofa or having your geriatric neighbor cruise over for chocolate fondue. Have fun and appreciate aesthetics equally, along with good food, drink, relationships, mistakes and carelessness. Appreciate repair. In the end, we’re all just stewards of property and we’re aging right along with it.

My Strange Love of Wabi-Sabi

Colonial Revival style was still popular in the 1950s. But seeing the Modern pieces being used encouraged people to buy them. These model rooms were redefining our visual vocabulary.

there is hope for the department-store anchored mall in America after all, according to a 2013 survey by Glimcher Realty Trust, part of its RetailMonitor series studying consumer behavior. Turns out, consumers say they like the shopping mall for the same reasons Wood does—and malls will succeed if they provide the right balance of shopping, entertainment, and community. As Sears and JCPenney branches shut down, surviving malls are replacing their anchor spots with fitness centers, grocery stores, and attractions such as children’s museums and ice rinks and filling in the other storefronts with services like hair salons. “The survey findings show consumers seek an all-around shopping experience,” says Marianne Bickle, director of the University of South Carolina’s department of retailing, who consulted on the survey, in a statement. “From the moment they enter the mall, consumers begin to enjoy the tactile experiences, ambiance of the environment and aromas of the stores and restaurants.”

But there is hope for the department-store anchored mall in America after all, according to a 2013 survey by Glimcher Realty Trust, part of its RetailMonitor series studying consumer behavior. Turns out, consumers say they like the shopping mall for the same reasons Wood does—and malls will succeed if they provide the right balance of shopping, entertainment, and community. As Sears and JCPenney branches shut down, surviving malls are replacing their anchor spots with fitness centers, grocery stores, and attractions such as children’s museums and ice rinks and filling in the other storefronts with services like hair salons. “The survey findings show consumers seek an all-around shopping experience,” says Marianne Bickle, director of the University of South Carolina’s department of retailing, who consulted on the survey, in a statement. “From the moment they enter the mall, consumers begin to enjoy the tactile experiences, ambiance of the environment and aromas of the stores and restaurants.”

In the mid-century, convenience was defined as a place to shop within your town, within a 5- or 10-minute drive from your house,” Wood says. “Whereas our notion of convenience now is not leaving our houses. These ideas of self-sufficiency and self-service have been pushed so far that you go on Amazon and you just say, ‘This is what I want.’ Amazon says, ‘Okay, here’s everything we have that matches that description,’ and then you choose. In actuality, I think Amazon is highly inefficient if you don’t know what you’re buying because you don’t have anyone to help you and say, ‘No, actually, this is better than that.’ Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted that your department store was going to sell you something that was good.” “In the ’60s, there was a lot of unrest in urban areas, and women in the suburbs would have been scared to drive into downtown.” These days, retailers are particularly concerned with the concept of “showrooming,” which means consumers go look at an item in the store, and then go home to order it online. Big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders are closing down, electronic retailers like Best Buy and RadioShack keep shuttering locations, and even the relentless growth of Wal-Mart and Target has been slowed. Wood could care less about the box stores, but she will be disheartened if the traditional department stores die out completely. “What still draws me to go to department stores—because I still love department stores—is having tangible goods in front of you and being able to touch, to see, and to feel what it is that’s being sold,” Wood says. “You lose a lot when you don’t see an array of goods—your ability to compare quality and price, and see exactly what the store has to offer. When you’re shopping online, you’re just relying on anonymous online reviews, and sometimes, other people have bad opinions. I want to be able to buy things that represent me and not what represents someone else and what they want. I think that will be the saddest part if there are no more department stores.

“In the mid-century, convenience was defined as a place to shop within your town, within a 5- or 10-minute drive from your house,” Wood says. “Whereas our notion of convenience now is not leaving our houses. These ideas of self-sufficiency and self-service have been pushed so far that you go on Amazon and you just say, ‘This is what I want.’ Amazon says, ‘Okay, here’s everything we have that matches that description,’ and then you choose. In actuality, I think Amazon is highly inefficient if you don’t know what you’re buying because you don’t have anyone to help you and say, ‘No, actually, this is better than that.’ Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted that your department store was going to sell you something that was good.” “In the ’60s, there was a lot of unrest in urban areas, and women in the suburbs would have been scared to drive into downtown.” These days, retailers are particularly concerned with the concept of “showrooming,” which means consumers go look at an item in the store, and then go home to order it online. Big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders are closing down, electronic retailers like Best Buy and RadioShack keep shuttering locations, and even the relentless growth of Wal-Mart and Target has been slowed. Wood could care less about the box stores, but she will be disheartened if the traditional department stores die out completely. “What still draws me to go to department stores—because I still love department stores—is having tangible goods in front of you and being able to touch, to see, and to feel what it is that’s being sold,” Wood says. “You lose a lot when you don’t see an array of goods—your ability to compare quality and price, and see exactly what the store has to offer. When you’re shopping online, you’re just relying on anonymous online reviews, and sometimes, other people have bad opinions. I want to be able to buy things that represent me and not what represents someone else and what they want. I think that will be the saddest part if there are no more department stores.

“In the mid-century, convenience was defined as a place to shop within your town, within a 5- or 10-minute drive from your house,” Wood says. “Whereas our notion of convenience now is not leaving our houses. These ideas of self-sufficiency and self-service have been pushed so far that you go on Amazon and you just say, ‘This is what I want.’ Amazon says, ‘Okay, here’s everything we have that matches that description,’ and then you choose. In actuality, I think Amazon is highly inefficient if you don’t know what you’re buying because you don’t have anyone to help you and say, ‘No, actually, this is better than that.’ Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted that your department store was going to sell you something that was good.” “In the ’60s, there was a lot of unrest in urban areas, and women in the suburbs would have been scared to drive into downtown.” These days, retailers are particularly concerned with the concept of “showrooming,” which means consumers go look at an item in the store, and then go home to order it online. Big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders are closing down, electronic retailers like Best Buy and RadioShack keep shuttering locations, and even the relentless growth of Wal-Mart and Target has been slowed. Wood could care less about the box stores, but she will be disheartened if the traditional department stores die out completely.

In 1988, Wal-Mart introduced its first Supercenter, a combination of its standard discount department store with a full grocery store, as well as other services like shoe repair or fast food. As Wal-Mart opened more and more Supercenters in the 1990s and 2000s, Target and Kmart also opened “super” stores offering groceries. These days, even suggesting a trip to Wal-Mart will send people into a state of exasperation. Same goes for the mall. Has the shopping experience been drained of all its pleasures?

“In the early 20th century, department stores, located downtown, were opulent and over the top, reflecting the Victorian and Edwardian obsession with excess and wealth,” Wood says. “To most people, they were aspirational spaces celebrating what you couldn’t have, unless you were extremely wealthy. In the mid-century, there’s still a bit of an aspirational ideal in department stores, but it’s much more toned down. With the booming middle class and the introduction of credit cards, the shopping experience is much more about what you can have.”

Often, the mall’s anchors, the big chain department stores, are the first to go. It seems that the 2008 recession and dominance of the Internet—where you can buy anything and everything with a few clicks—have taken their toll on brick-and-mortar behemoths like JCPenney, Sears, and even Macy’s. As the Computer Age thrusts us into the future, would-be mall rats are spending all their time on Facebook, and the breath-taking range of products, once so meticulously displayed for our delight, is being crammed into our PCs, tablets, and smartphones. But 60 years ago, these same department stores, particularly the new branches installed in fledging suburban shopping malls, were the way to the future. Post-World War II prosperity meant returning vets and their wives could ditch the turmoil of overcrowded cities, the frugal values of the Depression, and the frilly heirlooms of the Victorian Era. They would build their dream homes in the suburbs and fill them with shiny new appliances and furnishings made of cutting-edge materials, like acrylic and fiberglass, developed for the war. There, housewives would throw away their Rosie the Riveter coveralls and reclaim their “femininity” with new dresses, fashion accessories, and beauty products.

The once-vibrant shopping mall has one foot in the grave these days. About 20 percent of the 2,000 largest U.S. malls were failing in 2008, and by 2012, only 1,513 remained in operation. Current numbers predict more than 200 existing big malls will collapse in the next 10 years. Search the phrase, “dead malls,” and you’ll find photo after photo of tiled walkways littered with debris, untended planters near the darkened rest areas for bored dads, and empty indoor storefronts—the discolored shadows of their missing lighted signs lingering like ghosts. “Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted your department store.” Often, the mall’s anchors, the big chain department stores, are the first to go. It seems that the 2008 recession and dominance of the Internet—where you can buy anything and everything with a few clicks—have taken their toll on brick-and-mortar behemoths like JCPenney, Sears, and even Macy’s. As the Computer Age thrusts us into the future, would-be mall rats are spending all their time on Facebook, and the breath-taking range of products, once so meticulously displayed for our delight, is being crammed into our PCs, tablets, and smartphones. But 60 years ago, these same department stores, particularly the new branches installed in fledging suburban shopping malls, were the way to the future. Post-World War II prosperity meant returning vets and their wives could ditch the turmoil of overcrowded cities, the frugal values of the Depression, and the frilly heirlooms of the Victorian Era. They would build their dream homes in the suburbs and fill them with shiny new appliances and furnishings made of cutting-edge materials, like acrylic and fiberglass, developed for the war. There, housewives would throw away their Rosie the Riveter coveralls and reclaim their “femininity” with new dresses, fashion accessories, and beauty products.

In addition to the escalators and new forms of lighting, new department stores featured another marvel of modern technology: central air. The heating, air-conditioning, and bright lights eliminated the need for windows, so in the 1950s and ’60s, stores without windows were built inside new shopping malls.

Not only did the design influence where a shopper’s eyes would go, it also influenced the steps that shopper would take through the store. “In a department store, there’s a tile path or flooring that you feel compelled to walk on, because you’re not going to cut through the carpeted area that has all of the fixtures to get from one place to another,” Wood says. “So you follow that path, which leads you where the store wants you to go. It leads you away from the exits and toward the interior. When you want to go up, the elevators are always hidden so that you’re more likely to take the escalator. Once you get to the next level, you have to walk all the way around the other side to keep going up, so you see everything showcased on that floor.” Early in the century, the first escalators were a hard sell because high-society ladies wouldn’t use them, but by the ’50s, escalators were a central feature of most department stores. “Escalators have this weird history of being thought of as low-brow,” Wood says. “I’ve seen multiple references to the fact that women of a higher class did not want to use escalators. When the flagship Foley’s in Houston was redesigned by Raymond Loewy, he kept elevators to appeal to the carriage-trade women. They could come in and take the elevator, which would deliver them directly to the high-end floor.”

Not only did the design influence where a shopper’s eyes would go, it also influenced the steps that shopper would take through the store. “In a department store, there’s a tile path or flooring that you feel compelled to walk on, because you’re not going to cut through the carpeted area that has all of the fixtures to get from one place to another,” Wood says. “So you follow that path, which leads you where the store wants you to go. It leads you away from the exits and toward the interior. When you want to go up, the elevators are always hidden so that you’re more likely to take the escalator. Once you get to the next level, you have to walk all the way around the other side to keep going up, so you see everything showcased on that floor.” Early in the century, the first escalators were a hard sell because high-society ladies wouldn’t use them, but by the ’50s, escalators were a central feature of most department stores. “Escalators have this weird history of being thought of as low-brow,” Wood says. “I’ve seen multiple references to the fact that women of a higher class did not want to use escalators. When the flagship Foley’s in Houston was redesigned by Raymond Loewy, he kept elevators to appeal to the carriage-trade women. They could come in and take the elevator, which would deliver them directly to the high-end floor.”

Not only did the design influence where a shopper’s eyes would go, it also influenced the steps that shopper would take through the store. “In a department store, there’s a tile path or flooring that you feel compelled to walk on, because you’re not going to cut through the carpeted area that has all of the fixtures to get from one place to another,” Wood says. “So you follow that path, which leads you where the store wants you to go. It leads you away from the exits and toward the interior. When you want to go up, the elevators are always hidden so that you’re more likely to take the escalator. Once you get to the next level, you have to walk all the way around the other side to keep going up, so you see everything showcased on that floor.”

Early in the century, the first escalators were a hard sell because high-society ladies wouldn’t use them, but by the ’50s, escalators were a central feature of most department stores. “Escalators have this weird history of being thought of as low-brow,” Wood says. “I’ve seen multiple references to the fact that women of a higher class did not want to use escalators. When the flagship Foley’s in Houston was redesigned by Raymond Loewy, he kept elevators to appeal to the carriage-trade women. They could come in and take the elevator, which would deliver them directly to the high-end floor.”

“The Raymond Loewy plan wasn’t just about the aesthetics,” Wood says. “He did in-depth studies of how these department stores functioned including what managers and salespeople were doing. He’d basically present the store with a plan on the best way to run their business. He found that people wanted to be able to go into a store and not have to wait for help. They wanted to be able to see everything in stock. They wanted to be able to have it instantly, and that’s what would facilitate selling.”

“The stylistic changes in 1930s retail were starting to reflect ideas of streamlining and European moderne, based on looking at World’s Fairs and what was happening in industrial design,”

In the early 20th century, department stores, located downtown, were opulent and over the top, reflecting the Victorian and Edwardian obsession with excess and wealth,” Wood says. “To most people, they were aspirational spaces celebrating what you couldn’t have, unless you were extremely wealthy. In the mid-century, there’s still a bit of an aspirational ideal in department stores, but it’s much more toned down. With the booming middle class and the introduction of credit cards, the shopping experience is much more about what you can have.”

nto the void stepped forward-thinking designer Raymond Loewy, who took the fusty, old concept of the department store and reinvented it for these eager shoppers. As the young couples were drawn into these stores to start their new lives, Loewy and other designers were gently ushering them into the Modern Age of Design. Ultimately, Loewy didn’t just alter American style or tastes, he changed the way Americans consume.

nto the void stepped forward-thinking designer Raymond Loewy, who took the fusty, old concept of the department store and reinvented it for these eager shoppers. As the young couples were drawn into these stores to start their new lives, Loewy and other designers were gently ushering them into the Modern Age of Design. Ultimately, Loewy didn’t just alter American style or tastes, he changed the way Americans consume.

From Retail Palace to Zombie Mall: How Efficiency Killed the Department Store

In the end, it should always be about the work. And when obstacles, like lack of recognition and poor research, prevent a fair, holistic appreciation of design work, we have a problem. Yet gender-equality requires people who are willing to keep talking about these issues in the press, online, or in the classroom, across all mediums, for a long time. Furthermore, this isn’t a women-only issue. The wage and gender disparity won’t cease without the voices and the efforts of men. This calls for a uniform change of attitude, that it isn’t a matter of “singling out” women or forcing them into tokenism, but a matter of correcting a systematic imbalance. In a 1993 issue of PRINT Magazine, Paula Scher

. And when obstacles, like lack of recognition and poor research, prevent a fair, holistic appreciation of design work, we have a problem. Yet gender-equality requires people who are willing to keep talking about these issues in the press, online, or in the classroom, across all mediums, for a long time. Furthermore, this isn’t a women-only issue. The wage and gender disparity won’t cease without the voices and the efforts of men. This calls for a uniform change of attitude, that it isn’t a matter of “singling out” women or forcing them into tokenism, but a matter of correcting a systematic imbalance. In a 1993 issue of PRINT Magazine, Paula Scher said it well, “Change doesn’t come in one great thump. It comes one by one by one by one, and it looks kind of funny. And then it doesn’t.”

Jacqueline S. Casey. She is primarily responsible for bringing the International Typographic Style to the US, and her work is just as brilliant as Muller-Brockmann’s, Crouwel’s, Ruder’s…. But for some reason, her name is left out most of the time.”

In the design field, many women may have been assistants or “office girls” and so few held the top titles, such as art director or creative director. In a basic sense, women’s careers have rarely followed the same path of men’s, since there has historically been immense pressure placed on women to be solely homemakers and nurture families (see: Beyond The Glass Ceiling: an open discussion, Astrid Stavro, Elephant #6) with more sinister pressures of socially-accepted sexism and segregation discouraging, or even disqualifying, the career ambitions of capable women

Forty or fifty years ago, the workforce was overwhelmingly a man’s world. In the design field, many women may have been assistants or “office girls” and so few held the top titles, such as art director or creative director. In a basic sense, women’s careers have rarely followed the same path of men’s, since there has historically been immense pressure placed on women to be solely homemakers and nurture families (see: Beyond The Glass Ceiling: an open discussion, Astrid Stavro, Elephant #6) with more sinister pressures of socially-accepted sexism and segregation discouraging, or even disqualifying, the career ambitions of capable women.

The National Education Association reports of 2011 estimated that 54% of all US designers in the profession are women. In the UK it is lower, although the Design Council research found that 70% of design students in the UK are women, but 60% of the industry is male. I was curious to explore the reductive process by which these female majorities dwindle.

The Glass Ceiling, a term used to describe an invisible barrier that prevents someone (usually women and minorities) from achieving further success, seems to have almost no place in design, according to some in the field.

Is it still important to talk about “women of graphic design” as a topic? Horne speculates that despite the work of revolutionary gender activists, there are still indications that issues for women in design need to be discussed. She names a few: oversights in the organization of jury panels, lack of female representation in anthologies and survey publications and a propagation of blogs reinforcing strict ideas of gender.

As discussed earlier, the US design profession is not predominantly male— just over half of the profession is female— yet with celebrity designers so often male, the representation is primarily male. In “Type Persons Who Happen to be Female” Susanne Dechant explains that despite many typographic achievements, women remained underrepresented at type conferences. “TypoBerlin (2009: 5% female presenters) or Atypl (2009: 12%), as well as in various type foundries (Linotype 2005: 12.3%; Myfonts.com 2008: 14%). Today an equal number of women and men are studying type design—so we can expect or at least hope for a levelling of the playing field.”

Margaret Calvert, a designer who defined the British network of roadways with her typeface design in the 1960s, never received wide recognition for this development. Presently, all road signs in Great Britain include her designs, an important contribution to the cultural landscape of England, but attempting to research this work and topic results in articles surrounding her partner, Jock Kinneir. Recently, after the passing of her studio partner, she has finally begun receiving more recognition for her work. Calvert’s experience is just an example of the oversight many designers encounter.

Despite notions that the issue of sex is obsolete in graphic design, only a small fraction of active female designers receive public acclamation. Margaret Calvert, a designer who defined the British network of roadways with her typeface design in the 1960s, never received wide recognition for this development. Presently, all road signs in Great Britain include her designs, an important contribution to the cultural landscape of England, but attempting to research this work and topic results in articles surrounding her partner, Jock Kinneir. Recently, after the passing of her studio partner, she has finally begun receiving more recognition for her work. Calvert’s experience is just an example of the oversight many designers encounter.

Hitchcock adds, “Why does design history still teach about male designers 80% more than women designers? Why do we have 80 % women in the student body (in our [RISD] department) and 80% men in the faculty?”

Is it a matter of fairness that emerging designers require encouragement, and part of that is seeing their sex represented in the professional field and in the teaching of design? Brockett Horne, a designer and the Chair of Graphic Design at Maryland Institute College of Art, believes young female designers could greatly benefit from a change in the exposure and representation of women in graphic design. “I know from the classroom that student designers are thirsty for diverse insights on design methodologies, outcomes, and advice on how to create a strong life and work balance,” Horne explains. “I’d like to see females become more confident in publishing their process, ideas, and experiences. I see this as a continuity of tradition that we have inherited from the artists and designers who fought hard for us to sit at the table. “Problems still perpetuate if the media only represents those with the highest profiles, if conference organisers don’t do their research to discover new and relevant voices, if education doesn’t look at a range of role models, if teachers ignore discussions on gender and representation; then, we are not taking our responsibility as designers, as a profession, as educators, and our duty to the public, seriously enough.” So talking about issues for women in design is not only important for students, but the educators that advise them.

Should it matter to the structure of design education if the majority of design students are female? Is it a matter of fairness that emerging designers require encouragement, and part of that is seeing their sex represented in the professional field and in the teaching of design? Brockett Horne, a designer and the Chair of Graphic Design at Maryland Institute College of Art, believes young female designers could greatly benefit from a change in the exposure and representation of women in graphic design. “I know from the classroom that student designers are thirsty for diverse insights on design methodologies, outcomes, and advice on how to create a strong life and work balance,” Horne explains. “I’d like to see females become more confident in publishing their process, ideas, and experiences. I see this as a continuity of tradition that we have inherited from the artists and designers who fought hard for us to sit at the table. “Problems still perpetuate if the media only represents those with the highest profiles, if conference organisers don’t do their research to discover new and relevant voices, if education doesn’t look at a range of role models, if teachers ignore discussions on gender and representation; then, we are not taking our responsibility as designers, as a profession, as educators, and our duty to the public, seriously enough.” So talking about issues for women in design is not only important for students, but the educators that advise them.

Not enough women designers are given the recognition that they deserve,” says graphic designer Antonio Carusone. “Take for example Jacqueline S. Casey. She is primarily responsible for bringing the International Typographic Style to the US, and her work is just as brilliant as Muller-Brockmann’s, Crouwel’s, Ruder’s…. But for some reason, her name is left out most of the time.”

In the US, some 70% of design students are female, yet their education is scattered with gaps. Teal Triggs and Sian Cook, of the Women’s Design + Research Unit in the UK, explain, “For far too long, history has either marginalised or excluded many women from being entered into the design history books and as a result, the design canon. Whilst acknowledging that over the last decade such gender concerns have begun to be readdressed by historians, educators and the design profession at large, much more can still be done.”

There is a line of forgotten women in our history. I argue that sexism is somewhat less obvious in our workplace today, far subtler than it might have been in the 1950s and 60s, but perhaps we still accept some mores of old, underlying currents that flow through our design culture, much like that lecture in 2011.

that the presence of female designers missing from the history of graphic design is a sore oversight of the profession. And while we can claim more progressive (and equal) laws and beliefs in present day society, the disparity between male and female representation in design lingers on

It is often discussed, academically and informally, that the presence of female designers missing from the history of graphic design is a sore oversight of the profession. And while we can claim more progressive (and equal) laws and beliefs in present day society, the disparity between male and female representation in design lingers on

Women in Graphic Design (and why we need to talk about them)

The day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral at St.Paul’s Cathedral gave me an indication. For security reasons, much of the Square Mile was closed to vehicular traffic; the streets were preserved for the pedestrian and the cyclist.

Why Cycle Cities Are the Future

Park+Jog may be adapted to any city worldwide and serve as an example for how Cycle Space could lay the ideological foundation to change our cities for the better. Combining new transportation methods that encourage the principles of a healthy life style with traditional roads can raise land values, attract investment and activate the urban environment. The social revolution that Bazalgette offered London in the 19th Century, Cycle Space might just bring to London and our world’s cities in the 21st.

Although originally conceived for Manchester, I believe that Park+Jog may be adapted to any city worldwide and serve as an example for how Cycle Space could lay the ideological foundation to change our cities for the better. Combining new transportation methods that encourage the principles of a healthy life style with traditional roads can raise land values, attract investment and activate the urban environment. The social revolution that Bazalgette offered London in the 19th Century, Cycle Space might just bring to London and our world’s cities in the 21st.

What is striking about these parks is the positive impact they can have on their surrounding neighbourhoods, particularly when one considers the alternative. With roads, be it a dual carriageway or a street, comes heavy traffic, noise and pollution, at the expense of those who live and work around it. In the case of a High Street we forego certain types of shops, cafés and restaurants that engender a street life.

Active transportation routes and linear parks, on the other hand, regenerate their surroundings, bringing activity and value to blighted sections of the city. They also radically alter the political situation for the suburb and its inevitable commute.

But it’s the work of Joseph Bazalgette, the chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, that stands out to me - not just for its contribution to public health but also for its potential parallels to Cycle Space. For much of its history London had been associated with poor living conditions and disease. By the late 1850s the scale of the city was making things worse: London’s sewage was deposited into the River Thames, out of which the city’s drinking water was being collected. Bazalgette’s solution was to construct a series of sewers that would run parallel to the Thames, both north and south of the river, collecting the sewage and ensuring the drinking water that was drawn from the river was clean.

Of course, the tabula rasa model wasn’t necessary. It was ideological. But it brought with it flats with fitted kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. This prompted the gradual gentrification of the remaining streets. Indoor toilets were fitted, and bedrooms and sculleries were converted into bathrooms and kitchens in the surviving 19th century housing stock.

Imagine that the Boris Bike docking stations outside railway stations and in key public spaces might incorporate general cycle parking. Thus the Cycle City would bring with it a new building type – the multistory cycle park. Fietsenstalling, a multistorey cycle park outside Amsterdam’s Centraal rail station, with its Escher-like pattern of steel decks that suspend over the canal, is a dramatic model. Its very presence is didactic. It is persuasive.

The 2010 launch of the “Boris Bike”

What impressed us was the speed of progress. When we were in Chicago at the end of June, the city launched its own bike share scheme. New York already has one. The docking stations bring tangible cycle infrastructure to the city streets. In-carriage and separated cycle routes have begun to proliferate. Disused railway lines are being harnessed as leisure trails, and in some cases these were working well for commuters too. Indianapolis had recently completed their “Cultural Trail,” an active transportation loop linking the five central city districts

Recently I took four weeks out of the office to cycle from Chicago to New York and to visit cities along the way. My 1,300 mile trip was part of a group expedition called P2P that went from Portland, Oregon to Portland Place in London (read more about it on portlandtoportland.org). The objective was to report back to the UK and London in particular on American city-cycling culture and the political initiatives that are emerging in the US.

What is striking about these parks is the positive impact they can have on their surrounding neighbourhoods, particularly when one considers the alternative. With roads, be it a dual carriageway or a street, comes heavy traffic, noise and pollution, at the expense of those who live and work around it. In the case of a High Street we forego certain types of shops, cafés and restaurants that engender a street life. At the scale of the dual-carriageway the A40 that tears through west London illustrates beautifully how dramatic the blight on homes can be, as this Mid-20th Century residential avenue has been transformed into a slum wrapped around a congested commuter road. These zones lack the 'density' of the city centre and the space of the suburb. And, each successive wave of Greenfield development adds to the expanse of this grey space.

This monumental feat of engineering offers us the best precedent for the impact the bicycle might have on London or any city for that matter. Cycling offers us, for the first time in more than a century and a half, the chance to build an infrastructure that will bring with it significant public health improvements. In our auto-centric world, we have unprecedented levels of health problems - obesity, diabetes, etc - all associated with our sedentary lifestyles. Cycling should mean a fitter population and a longer life expectancy, which would take pressure off the National Health Service and bring huge economic benefits. It would of course also reduce energy consumption.

“Boris Bike” - London’s cycle hire scheme, named after mayor Boris Johnson – was the clearest indication to date that cycling was no longer just for a minority of fanatics but a healthy, efficient and sustainable mode of transport that city planners wanted in their armoury. There are now more than 8,000 Boris Bikes and 550+ docking stations in Central London. And the trend’s not anomalous to London: Wikipedia reports that there are 535 cycle-share schemes in 49 countries, employing more than half a million bikes worldwide.

The 2010 launch of the “Boris Bike” - London’s cycle hire scheme, named after mayor Boris Johnson – was the clearest indication to date that cycling was no longer just for a minority of fanatics but a healthy, efficient and sustainable mode of transport that city planners wanted in their armoury. There are now more than 8,000 Boris Bikes and 550+ docking stations in Central London. And the trend’s not anomalous to London: Wikipedia reports that there are 535 cycle-share schemes in 49 countries, employing more than half a million bikes worldwide.

What impressed us was the speed of progress. When we were in Chicago at the end of June, the city launched its own bike share scheme. New York already has one. The docking stations bring tangible cycle infrastructure to the city streets. In-carriage and separated cycle routes have begun to proliferate. Disused railway lines are being harnessed as leisure trails, and in some cases these were working well for commuters too. Indianapolis had recently completed their “Cultural Trail,” an active transportation loop linking the five central city districts.

Recently I took four weeks out of the office to cycle from Chicago to New York and to visit cities along the way. My 1,300 mile trip was part of a group expedition called P2P that went from Portland, Oregon to Portland Place in London (read more about it on portlandtoportland.org). The objective was to report back to the UK and London in particular on American city-cycling culture and the political initiatives that are emerging in the US.

Towards the end of my trip, it occurred to me that this explosion in cycling, ought to be put into an historic context, in order to enable the politicians and the public to recognize the scale of the opportunity, the change it might bring to our cities and our lives. Save this picture!

Why Cycle Cities Are the Future

“It’s an experiment,” Dr. Barratt said of the frame-restoration process. “How close can we get to the original from the photograph, and what is our responsibility to the original when we aren’t sure about the level of detail?”

The crossing was a pivot point in a crucial campaign that rescued the revolution from failure,” Professor Fischer said, adding that it burnished not only Washington’s reputation as a leader, but also brought foreign support for the rebels’ cause.

“The crossing was a pivot point in a crucial campaign that rescued the revolution from failure,” Professor Fischer said, adding that it burnished not only Washington’s reputation as a leader, but also brought foreign support for the rebels’ cause.

It is believed to have been destroyed, but researchers continue to search the photographic record and are studying military iconography and the coinage of the mid-19th century, as well as the styles of carvers, to better reproduce the original design. After its conservation the painting is likely to be installed first, attached to steel beams embedded in a grand room of the new galleries, which are to be named after the late collector Peter Jay Sharp, whose foundation is a major contributor. Then the frame will be placed around the canvas, attached to the wall separately.

The painting created another stir when it was presented at the April 1864 Art Exhibition at the Metropolitan Fair in Aid of the United States Sanitary Commission, a benefit for Union soldiers. The image was widely distributed in Europe, and in America it has adorned postcards, postage stamps and coffee mugs. Currier and Ives issued an altered unauthorized version, Professor Fischer said.

hrough the centuries the painting has been criticized aesthetically and for historical shortcomings. (The design of the fluttering American flag, for example, was not yet in use.) “You can add one inaccuracy to another, but Leutze understood the air of desperation, the small scale of the event and the very large meaning,” Professor Fischer said. “He got all of that right.”

hrough the centuries the painting has been criticized aesthetically and for historical shortcomings. (The design of the fluttering American flag, for example, was not yet in use.) “You can add one inaccuracy to another, but Leutze understood the air of desperation, the small scale of the event and the very large meaning,” Professor Fischer said. “He got all of that right.”

Through the centuries the painting has been criticized aesthetically and for historical shortcomings. (The design of the fluttering American flag, for example, was not yet in use.) “You can add one inaccuracy to another, but Leutze understood the air of desperation, the small scale of the event and the very large meaning,” Professor Fischer said. “He got all of that right.”

The painting created another stir when it was presented at the April 1864 Art Exhibition at the Metropolitan Fair in Aid of the United States Sanitary Commission, a benefit for Union soldiers. The image was widely distributed in Europe, and in America it has adorned postcards, postage stamps and coffee mugs. Currier and Ives issued an altered unauthorized version, Professor Fischer said.

conservators are refining a plan to remove layers of varnish for the painting’s first surface-cleaning in decades. Currently the image is yellowish; at places in the blue sky clots of dirt and debris suggest a nonexistent flock of birds. And the prophetic morning star above Washington is barely visible.

conservators are refining a plan to remove layers of varnish for the painting’s first surface-cleaning in decades. Currently the image is yellowish; at places in the blue sky clots of dirt and debris suggest a nonexistent flock of birds. And the prophetic morning star above Washington is barely visible.

The monumental work by Emanuel Leutze is ranked among the top five artworks in the museum’s visitor-popularity surveys. It is believed that the painting was rolled up to make its original trip to the museum, as it was to fit into its current space for the 1980 opening of the American Wing. The potential for damage prevents the canvas from being rolled now. The scale of the painting’s conservation and reframing, which is to begin later this year, “is unprecedented in the history of the museum, to my knowledge,” Dr. Barratt said. “But it is still very much a research project.”

One of the most complex restoration and reframing projects in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has collided with a 9-foot-3-inch-high doorway. The doorway won.

and will be getting heavier, because curators are currently assessing the best way to carve an elaborate new 3,000-pound basswood frame that would replicate the original, missing for more than a century. After years of detective work, an image of the frame was recently discovered in a 143-year-old Mathew Brady photograph.

It is heavy too, and will be getting heavier, because curators are currently assessing the best way to carve an elaborate new 3,000-pound basswood frame that would replicate the original, missing for more than a century. After years of detective work, an image of the frame was recently discovered in a 143-year-old Mathew Brady photograph.

Through the centuries the painting has been criticized aesthetically and for historical shortcomings. (The design of the fluttering American flag, for example, was not yet in use.) “You can add one inaccuracy to another, but Leutze understood the air of desperation, the small scale of the event and the very large meaning,” Professor Fischer said. “He got all of that right.”

It is heavy too, and will be getting heavier, because curators are currently assessing the best way to carve an elaborate new 3,000-pound basswood frame that would replicate the original, missing for more than a century. After years of detective work, an image of the frame was recently discovered in a 143-year-old Mathew Brady photograph.

complex restoration and reframing projects in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has collided with a 9-foot-3-inch-high doorway. The doorway won.

One of the most complex restoration and reframing projects in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has collided with a 9-foot-3-inch-high doorway. The doorway won.

What Surrounds a Legend? A 3,000-Pound Gilt Frame

Museum officials drew on international models—such as the relationship between the Musée de Louvre in Paris and Le Louvre Lens in Pas-de-Calais, 200 kilometers to the north—to develop integrated programming that would drive some of the National Palace Museum, Taipei’s 6 million annual visitors to the Southern Branch. Taiwanese legislator Weng Chong-Jun has stated that these visitors won’t only benefit Jiayi’s economy through the tourist sector, they will also boost the region’s historic tea industry.

The U.S. Should Learn from Taiwan’s Commitment to Providing Museum Access to Rural Poor

Musée de Louvre in Paris and Le Louvre Lens in Pas-de-Calais, 200 kilometers to the north—to develop integrated programming that would drive some of the National Palace Museum, Taipei’s 6 million annual visitors to the Southern Branch. Taiwanese legislator Weng Chong-Jun has stated that these visitors won’t only benefit Jiayi’s economy through the tourist sector, they will also boost the region’s historic tea industry.

The right to cultural equity is broadly acknowledged within the international community. The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts for all people “the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” And the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights asserts the right of all people “to take part in cultural life,” as well as the responsibility of governments to “achieve the full realization of this right [through]…the conservation, the development, and the diffusion of science and culture.”

The U.S. has lagged behind when it comes to the issue of cultural access. But in 2016, Americans for the Arts, the largest U.S. think-tank and advocacy group for arts and cultural research, released its “Statement on Cultural Equity.” By recognizing that all Americans deserve “fair and equitable access to cultural resources and support,” Americans in the Arts is echoing what Taiwan has long known—that cultural equity is the bedrock of a stable and flourishing democracy.

With globalization, Taiwanese farmers are forced to compete with cheap agricultural goods from China and Southeast Asia. And although Taiwan has a strong organic and local food movement, it’s easy to imagine why farmers might feel fearful of the trend toward globalization. Exhibitions at the Southern Branch serve at least two important functions: to educate viewers about other cultures, and to reveal that cultural purity is a myth. By showcasing the fruits of cultural exchange, the Southern Branch suggests that the strongest defense against protectionist tendencies is a broader sense of identity.

The right to cultural equity is broadly acknowledged within the international community. The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts for all people “the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” And the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights asserts the right of all people “to take part in cultural life,” as well as the responsibility of governments to “achieve the full realization of this right [through]…the conservation, the development, and the diffusion of science and culture.”

While the National Palace Museum’s two branches share many works, each has a slightly different angle on Chinese cultural heritage. Unlike the older National Palace Museum, Taipei, which showcases objects from the imperial collections of past Chinese dynasties, the Southern Branch is forward-looking, laying the groundwork for a narrative of pan-Asian identity. Driving this shift is Taiwan’s underlying geopolitical strategy to decrease its dependence on Mainland China and increase its ties with the rest of Asia.

Drawing nearly 1.5 million visitors in 2016, its first year, the Southern Branch doesn’t just promote globalization in the abstract, it also positions Jiayi to reap its benefits. By investing over NT$10.9 billion (U.S. $350 million) to create a world-class tourist destination in this southern municipality, the Taiwanese government intentionally placed cultural industries at the center of Jiayi’s 21st-century economic development plan.

Thus the inaugural exhibitions at the Southern Branch showcased blue-and-white porcelain objects featuring Islamic calligraphy—presented as gifts between Chinese and Persian ruling families—and Japanese and Korean ceramics, which underscore techniques shared by Chinese artisans. Permanent exhibitions on Asian textiles and Buddhist art further highlight the history of positive cultural exchange across Asia.

Thus the inaugural exhibitions at the Southern Branch showcased blue-and-white porcelain objects featuring Islamic calligraphy—presented as gifts between Chinese and Persian ruling families—and Japanese and Korean ceramics, which underscore techniques shared by Chinese artisans. Permanent exhibitions on Asian textiles and Buddhist art further highlight the history of positive cultural exchange across Asia.

To that end, museum officials transferred some of the institution’s most popular attractions to the Southern Branch and offered free admission to residents of three southern counties for the first three months after its opening. Curators ensured that prized antiquities—such as the crowd-pleasing Jadeite Cabbage, a piece of jade carved into the form of the green vegetable—would make their rounds at the Southern Branch and attract local visitors. The inclusion of a permanent exhibition about tea culture across Asia offered an additional point of entry to residents of these counties, where tea cultivation is a major sector of the local economy.

To that end, museum officials transferred some of the institution’s most popular attractions to the Southern Branch and offered free admission to residents of three southern counties for the first three months after its opening. Curators ensured that prized antiquities—such as the crowd-pleasing Jadeite Cabbage, a piece of jade carved into the form of the green vegetable—would make their rounds at the Southern Branch and attract local visitors. The inclusion of a permanent exhibition about tea culture across Asia offered an additional point of entry to residents of these counties, where tea cultivation is a major sector of the local economy.

As Taiwanese society grew more democratic from the 1970s onward, and as Taiwanese identity grew more distinct from Mainland China, the role of Taiwan’s cultural policy also shifted—from elitism toward inclusivity and from cultural chauvinism toward cosmopolitanism. At the beginning of the new millennium, Taiwan’s highest legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, announced an ambitious project to provide all citizens with equal access to national cultural heritage. Proposed in 2001 by former museum director Tu Cheng-sheng, the project had an explicit mission to address “the cultural equity between Northern and Southern Taiwan.”

As Taiwanese society grew more democratic from the 1970s onward, and as Taiwanese identity grew more distinct from Mainland China, the role of Taiwan’s cultural policy also shifted—from elitism toward inclusivity and from cultural chauvinism toward cosmopolitanism. At the beginning of the new millennium, Taiwan’s highest legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, announced an ambitious project to provide all citizens with equal access to national cultural heritage. Proposed in 2001 by former museum director Tu Cheng-sheng, the project had an explicit mission to address “the cultural equity between Northern and Southern Taiwan.”

But the question of who has, and who doesn’t have, cultural access has garnered relatively little attention. Between 2005 and 2009, the National Endowment for the Arts distributed $38,937.71 per 10,000 residents in grants to New York County, while Arkansas’s Faulkner County received $88.31 per 10,000. While a New York or Washington D.C. resident can choose from dozens of free museums and cultural institutions where they can interact with art from across the globe, residents of rural America might be hard-pressed to reach a single one.

But the question of who has, and who doesn’t have, cultural access has garnered relatively little attention. Between 2005 and 2009, the National Endowment for the Arts distributed $38,937.71 per 10,000 residents in grants to New York County, while Arkansas’s Faulkner County received $88.31 per 10,000. While a New York or Washington D.C. resident can choose from dozens of free museums and cultural institutions where they can interact with art from across the globe, residents of rural America might be hard-pressed to reach a single one.

The fraught United States presidential election cycle of 2016 has revealed a country divided along geographical and ideological lines. It has also bolstered a narrative of haves and have-nots, pitting the so-called coastal elites against “heartland” America.

The fraught United States presidential election cycle of 2016 has revealed a country divided along geographical and ideological lines. It has also bolstered a narrative of haves and have-nots, pitting the so-called coastal elites against “heartland” America.

The U.S. Should Learn from Taiwan’s Commitment to Providing Museum Access to Rural Poor