Article Dwell April 23, 2014 Link Clowns, churches, and an aquarium: Find out how far the boundless curiosity of Ray and Charles Eames stretched. “It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do.” It’s easy to imagine Charles Eames laughing with joy after uttering those […]
Interview Dwell May 28, 2014 Link A bold experiment in demystifying and democratizing architecture, Auburn University’s Rural Studio, founded by Samuel Mockbee and D.K. Ruth in 1993, has overseen the construction of a menagerie of modernist structures in rural Hale County, Alabama, including the affordable 20K House. And while the work of generations of students stands […]
Feature Chicago Reader April 24, 2014 Link Documentary photographer Danny Lyon’s 1968 chronicle of a Chicago biker gang helped inspire Easy Rider. Now The Bikeriders revs up for a long-overdue reissue. Danny Lyon, Route 12, Wisconsin from The Bikeriders (Aperture, 2014)© Danny Lyon, Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery Danny Lyon doesn’t want to talk about the […]
Interview/Feature Design Bureau March 7, 2014 Link Many things conspired to bring 23-year-old designer Lyse Cook to live and work in Detroit last June. She cops to having drunk the Kool-Aid she’s heard the stories about “the Brooklyn of her generation,” the chance to make her mark in the Wild West atmosphere of a […]
Interview Forma Issue 3 Link You could call furniture maker Benjamin Klebba a craftsman. The 36-year-old looks the part—beard, Portland address, can probably plane a board in the time it takes you to finish this sentence, and will debate the pros and cons of walnut versus ash with the fervor music fans reserve […]
Interview Dwell March 5, 2014 Link When we first see the Grand Budapest Hotel in Wes Anderson’s visually stunning new film of the same name, she appears a withered beauty during a flashback to the 1960s. The garish green and orange lobby sticks out like a dye job crying for attention. But then, as the […]
Article/Interview Chicago Reader March 20, 2014 Link “Three shots closed Texas Guinan’s show at the Green Mill cafe, Lawrence avenue and Broadway, at 4 o’clock yesterday morning. The internationally known night club hostess was asking the suckers to give the little girl a big hand.”—Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1930 It’s not uncommon to walk into a bar in […]
Article/Interview Nothing Major October 3, 2013 Link Detroit boasts a history of legendary axmen—Jack White, Ted Nugent, Robert White, Wayne Kramer and Dennis Coffey to name a few. And now, thanks to the passion project of commercial real estate director and woodworker Mark Wallace, the next great musician on that list may kick out the […]
Article/Interview Nothing Major August 20, 2013 Link When Bata Shoe Museum Senior Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack first began assembling the exhibit that would become Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture (on display in Toronto through March 30, 2014), she hit up the right contacts. Erik Blam, manager of Run-D.M.C., and Bobbito Garcia, author of the sneaker bible Where’d […]
Article/Interview Nothing Major August 2013 Link History—and city skylines—tend to be constructed by the winners, but that’s never the whole story. Alexander Eisenshmidt, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, discovered the truth of this maxim while researching unfinished Chicago building projects and collecting a dossier of grandiose proposals, eccentric dreams, and impossible ideas that […]