Light me up!

from the historic light company..yes please!

Globe Shopping..20th Century design

We came across this beautiful shop in a back copy The World of Interiors magazine in a great article by Isabel de Estrada about its owner Pancho Salomons whose passion for discovering treasures in abandoned buildings inspired him to open a  shop dedicated to the best of retro chic. Set up in a converted railway warehouse in Buenos Aires and specialising in early mid 20th century pieces La Pasionaria is a treasured local secret in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. Pancho Salomons is himself a sculptor, clothes designer and fabric maker who is inspired by Mis Van der Rohe, Jaques-Emile Ruhlman,Josef Hoffman among others.The History of the district goes that when a yellow fever epidemic broke out in 1871 the Argentines left Avenida de Mayo for the north of the city, leaving huge empty Rationalist and Art Nouveau buildings empty which became family dwellings for a large immigrant population, mainly Spanish and Italian, bars and theaters popped up and it became the bohemian area and inspiration for writers and artist. Along with the immigrants came European brands filling the city with Galle and Muro glassware, Liberty fabrics, Bohemian glassware, Limoges porcelain and Biedermeier chairs.However by the 1980s little of the Bohemian area remained bar a lot of old unwanted treasures in the attics of these old buildings. The bars and cafes began to close and sell off their old fixtures and fittings..(sounds like a dream)This is when Salomons began collecting his objects, firstly for himself and for inspiration until they became so many that when he found the old railway warehouse, he swiftly moved in and opened his shop, La Pasionaria..

Ref: World of Interiors October 2007, Isabel de Estrada

Some pictures from *DIED* travelBlog

Le Corbusier and Chandigarh

 

 Vihan Sabha

 High Court

 High Court

 High Court

 Secretariat Building

 Vihan Sabha

Main central plaza

On researching the next adventure to India we came across these incredible buildings by French (born Swiss) Architect and urban planner, Le Corbusier in Chandigarh. So Chandigarh was an experimental city built in India in the 1950s and is the biggest and most significant example of urban planning executed by Le Corbusier.Looks amazing and can't wait to pay it a visit, wonder if they have any Government guest houses to stay in!

Pictures and great info from Travel Blog
From Antiques and Boutiques Interior Design Tours Barcelona

Jean Prouvé furniture design..

A bit more about our new favourite 20th century designer..! 

"Jean Prouvé is one of the greatest French designers of the 20th century. Working as a craftsman, designer, manufacturer, architect, teacher and engineer, his career spanned over sixty years. With remarkable elegance and economy of means, he designed prefabricated houses, building components and façades, as well as furniture for the home, office and school.

From his early days, Prouvé was apprenticed as an artist blacksmith, hammering and shaping red-hot wrought iron. He progressed to running a studio and then established his own factory at Maxéville, just outside Nancy, where he worked until 1953. Driven by the constant quest for innovation in process and use of materials, his bold, reduced forms were inspired by the sparse aesthetic of aircraft and automobile design. Prouvé believed in the power of design to make a better world. He fought for the French Résistance, ran his factory on socialist principles, and saw design as a moral issue."

from http://designmuseum.org/design/jean-prouve

Industrial beauty Jean Prouvé..

                          

Biography:
Jean Prouve (1901-1984): French Industrial- and Furniture Designer and Architect. Jean Prouve is one of the most influential furniture designers of the early modern design movement, Jean Prouve introduced the machine age and industrial engineered modern design aesthetic to interiors in the steel, aluminum and architecture he created. He then continued her experiments with different materials.

Jean Prouve was both engineer and modern designer.
Jean Prouve was once quoted saying: never design anything that cannot be made.

Jean Prouve was born into an artistic family in Nancy, France; his famous father, Victor Prouve, collaborated with the great Art Nouveau artists Emile Galle and Louis Majorelle as a ceramicist. Jean Prouve himself was trained as a metal smith before attending engineering school in Nancy, and his intimate knowledge of metal remained the foundation of his work and career. After opening his own workshop in 1923, Jean Prouve began producing modern metal furniture of his own design as well as collaborating with some of the best-known French modern designers of the day, including Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand. His shelving units for the dormitories at the Cite internationale universitaire de Paris, designed with Perriand and the artist Sonia Delaunay in 1952, are perhaps the best-known examples of his collaborative work.

Jean Prouve always regarded himself as more of an engineer and constructor instead of a modern designer. He never designed for the sake of form alone, concentrating instead on the essence of materials, connections and production. Jean Prouve strove for the most constructionally and materially efficient designs, with such classic end results as the modern design Standard chair of 1934 and the Antony chair of 1954. Utilizing his innovative method of folding sheet metal, Jean Prouve designed a series of tables that have the perceived lightness of bridges and the presence of architecture. In the mid 1950s, Jean Prouve was forced to abandon modern design furniture production and began devoting his time to the challenges of prefabricated architecture. His own house, which he designed as a prototype, is now considered a major development in prefab housing.

from http://www.jeanprouve.com/