18th Century Scale vs 21st Century Function

THIS photo is of a fieldstone farmhouse located in rural New Jersey. The original core of the buidling was built about 1780, then the first addition 100 years later and the second one story addition that houses the kitchen about 100 years later yet.

I am currently planning some renovations to the exsiting residece as well as the addition of a new ground floor Master Suite that will balance with the one story kitchen wing seen in the photo.

While the proportions of 18th Century structures is very pleasing the smaller scale is not always suited for today's living. People are larger in 2009 than they were in 1780 and so is their furniture. When this house was orignally built, the bathroom was outdoors in an outhouse and the Kitchen may have been outdoors or in another structure as well in order to protect the house from fire hazards.

Our challenge relative to Scale vs Function is to get larger scaled and comfortable furniture into the house, carve out out space for bathrooms and have a kitchen that will accomodate modern appliances. The addition of the Master Suite has to be scaled sympathetically to the original building as well.

So we look for lost space in cupboards, unused spaces under stairs and around chimneys in order to make every inch count.

Things to look out for......Make sure furniture will fit through openings before purchasing it!

Make sure that walls will support weight of fixtures, media equipment or appliances before installing them. Measure everything, because their is not a squared up corner, level floor, flat ceiling or straight line in the entire buidling. Save everything that is dismanteled, you are likely to want to resue odd items later in the project. Don't put too much stuff into this house...edit and keep it spartan.......less will be more when it comes to furnishings.

First things on the agenda.....A Powder Bath, New Windows, New Roof......landscaping is already in progress............

The term "Art Deco", as is now well known, comes from the title of the celebrated exhibition of decorative and industrial arts held in Paris in 1925: l'Expostion Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. It was not a term used at the time, however. In the 1920's and 1930's contemporary design was known as Art Moderne in France and Moderne or Modernistic in the United States. The expression "Art Deco" was not coined until 1968 as the title of a book by Bevis Hillier on the decorative arts of the 1920's and 1930's.

The photos below, of a contemporary yacht interior, exemplify what is argueably the most complete and oppulent style of interior achieved in the 20th Century.

The Art Deco style permeated architecture, art and sculpture, fashion, textiles and carpets and ceramics. Art Deco style is apparent even in the mundane, such as the design of book covers, school texts and household appliances. The Style influenced the design of automobiles, aircraft and ships. There is stylized Moderne literature and music from this period. Even politics (Mussolini), and philosophy (Ayn Rand) were influenced or augmented by this aesthetic.

While "Art Deco" is a style that was originally borne from the custom world of uber-luxury, in the United States the style was streamlined and mass produced through industrialization making objects of great style available to everyone.

My First Blog

While Mies Van der Rohe coined the phrase "Less is More" it is ironic to know that he himself resided in an overly full and traditional apartment, not one of his minimalist sculptural spaces.