The Secrets of the Gardner Museum

(The Courtyard, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)What do you get when you mix a Venetian palace, priceless artwork, a female patron, and a daring art robbery?  If you answered the Guggenheim Museum in Venice, you’re only partially right, but if you came up with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, then you’ve hit bull’s-eye! These ingredients make for a thrilling history, maybe even for a movie.  The Gardner Museum is back in the news with a reopening this past January after going through renovations and the addition of a new wing by Italian architect Renzo Piano - see below. The original building is seen at the right corner. 

(New Wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) Modeled after a 15th-century Venetian palazzo, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has always been considered a jewel among small museums, mainly for its masterpiece collection but also because of its beautiful, intimate and atmospheric space. It was also infamous for a dramatic art heist, still unsolved to this day. If you’re hunting for a Degas or a Vermeer painting, you may still uncover a hidden treasure out there!

(postcard of original Gardner Palazzo)

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My Favorite Things

You’ve probably received your holiday gifts and chances are your wish list is still unfulfilled.  I always like to gift myself from my own wish list (hey, I gifted everyone first!) as a reward for just getting through the year. (Wink, wink!)

Being a designer, my wish list for design books is VERY long, so I’d like to share some of the books that inspire me and maybe they will end up on your wish list too!  These books come from all industries – I don’t limit myself just to my field of interior design.  You never know where inspiration may come from so I keep myself open and attuned to all trends in other fields. 

From Design Magazines:

• Abitare: 50 Years of Design: The Best of Architecture, Interiors, Photography, Travel and Trends 1961-2011

Abitare, an Italian design magazine launched in 1961, informed the world of the latest trends in the design world, from interiors to accessories to graphic design, bringing it all under one cover.  This compilation reproduces the best articles of the magazine in Italian and English.

 From Photography:

• Cecil Beaton: The New York Years by Donald Albrecht

The Museum of the City of New York is currently hosting a retrospective of Photographer Cecil Beaton’s works – a beautiful reminder of the work that’s he done including photographs of the beautiful and famous as well as illustrations of costume designs for the opera. Beaton photographed icons such as Greta Garbo, Truman Capote, Audrey Hepburn and Andy Warhol.

• Bill Cunningham New York – DVD – Richard Press, Director

"We all get dressed for Bill," says Vogue editor Anna Wintour of Bill Cunningham, New York Times Photographer. His column, On the Street, for the Style section is a must-see for the fashionistas as well as for those who aspire to be street photographers. 

From Fashion Design:

• Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (Metropolitan Museum of Art) by Andrew Bolton

The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently hosted a blockbuster retrospective on the recently deceased fashion designer, Alexander McQueen.  The exhibit was jam-packed with his breathtaking creations and equally jam-packed with viewers! If you weren't lucky enough to see the exhibit, then this book will give you a taste of his genius. 

• Emilio Pucci by Vanessa Friedman

This book is covered in fabric using one of Pucci’s fabulous patterns (you have several choices) and quite hefty, hence very expensive. But the author spans Pucci's fashion creations throughout his career– great snapshots of la dolce vita - molto bella!

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Table Lamps Galore!

(Dalu Lamp by Vico Magistretti for Artemide)Table Lamps are very practical light fixtures – sometimes doing double duty in some rooms as they can provide task lighting as well as accent lighting for the room.  In our previous Designer Monthly, Suspended Light, we talked about how hanging light fixtures provide ambient lighting for the room.  Table lamps are more specialized – because of their smaller body, they can only throw light on a small area.  They’re great for specific tasks – reading, doing deskwork, and for providing an accent light in a corner of the room, where a ceiling light may miss. 

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The Legendary Biltmore

(Biltmore Hotel - Front)As a young boy, George Merrick traveled to Spain, explored medieval castles, towers, Moorish courtyards and pools, and developed a passion for them.  Fast forward several years later, Merrick becomes a real estate developer and teams up with hotel magnate, John McEntee Bowman, to create a grand hotel, a destination magnet for the rich and famous.  The Biltmore Hotel is born.

As you curve around the lush rolling green park, a Moorish tower arises and a Mediterranean palazzo appears majestically to fill out the horizon.  For a moment, you may imagine you’re in Italy or on the plains of Spain

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Hotel Therapy

(Hotel Amiris, Marrakesh, Morocco)One of my main thrills in traveling abroad is the hotel experience.  Sure, tasting new cuisines and meeting the natives is always exciting but I look forward to kicking off my dusty shoes and just relaxing at my lodgings too.  First, there’s the small but important detail – the room is already clean and neat – you don’t have to deal with personal messes.  Then there are the amenities that you may not have in your own home – the powerful jet spray in the shower or the spa toiletries on that dual sink marble vanity. And of course, there’s that menu near your phone – cocktails and midnight snacks ready to be ordered in a moment’s notice. 

Besides service amenities, you have the lifestyle aspect.  You may live in a cramped city apartment but for a few days or so, you can experience life in a lakeside rustic cabin or a petite villa by the sea.  Then there are the grand old palaces that some enterprising soul converted into hotel rooms – borrowed luxury to be remembered for a lifetime.

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