Nice to read something unrelated to impeachment, etc., but the only "room" that resonated with me is that of Nancy Lancaster. In fact, many of these so-called "rooms" aren't. Stonehenge? Really? Hotel lobbies? The whole article was a bit pretentious, but, hey, thankfully it was not political.
7
Please make this into a book!
28
“once you enter the circular part of the building, you find a shrine to the motifs and mathematical obsessions of the Holy Roman Empire.”
I believe you mean Roman Empire. Holy Roman Empire completely different.
28
I am astonished that a room/living space by Frank Lloyd Wright is not on this list! The architect redefined what a typical American room is in the early 20th century, from the narrow Victorian compartments to open flowing spaces where inside and outside is left indeterminate.
Still, in spite of the rather elastic definition of what constitutes a room, this is a pretty good list. :)
31
The mostly bourgeois list is trivial at best and disappointing at worst. It not only promotes shallow celebrity culture but a myopic western view. I think the operating word we are discussing here is to decorate and not design.
36
although meritorious and intriguing this list is totally out of touch showcasing an elitist view of interiors reflecting an European bias
Yves St Laurent room really?
history 's most enduring and significant spaces
Why not Versailles Hall of Mirrors... The Alhambra... Nomadic shelters.... Kitchens ( in any time period)
57
Today I learned: pretty much all of the architecture that the NYT thinks is important is white and Western.
50
Who decorates their living room to look like Stonehenge?
24
Please provide a FL Wright article on his rooms to appease the FLW cultists.
7
JB Blunk in Inverness, CA. Sublime. In my mind encompassing everything about the primary human impulse to make and to build. It's art more than decor. Highly personal and crafted architecture of the first order.
1
This is a very East Coast/European sensibility selection. There are fabulous architectural wonders on the West Coast. The Gamble house in Pasadena by Green and Green comes to mind as fine art architecture and interior design that influenced the entire West Coast. Those lovely interiors of Santa Fe are John Gaw Meem influenced and inspired homes from New Mexico to California. Julia Morgan's buildings at Asilomar in Pacific Grove and Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite are unforgettable experiences for a visitor. Charles and Rae Eames house in LA is a landmark of mid century modern.
44
I would have included the great room at the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite as a defining example of a warm comfortable public space that draws upon yet holds at bay majestic, threatening nature.
24
I have enough interest in design to read the article but I am quiet irritated by half of the selections. Stone Henge may be an early influence to built shelter but no more than rain. The library is worthy of influencing design and the Georgian parlors point to scale and proportions but the same kind of space in many of the other photos are cluttered with what the owner imagines are precious things. The Pierre Chareau salon may work as a doctors office but the occupant is deprived of a view of the courtyard. They may as well be luminescent panels in the basement. It should influence as design to avoid. Donald Judd's bed on the floor is silly. Who would want to live with David Hicks's red living room. I really do like Ricardo Bofill's and Vincent Van Duysen's living rooms.
7
If one blots out the whodunit behind the rooms you recognize subtler details, broader ideas, and various designers in them. It is an interesting exercise to see what happens when we are blindfolded.
3
I loved this! This is a list that could be juggled, and rejiggered endlessly. (the sign of a GREAT topic....) How about the red
studio in the Matisse painting? Or the Peacock Room, by
Whistler? (a distinctive room, with a story no less). I would
nominate the totality of Fallingwater, the FLW home in the Allegheny Mountains. I've visited it endless times, and every visit has been a satori. I so enjoyed the comments by your panelists, and the comments here. Thank you!
7
We start out with architecture and wander into interior decoration in rooms that have no interest other than their furnishings. Yes, it is all about space, but anyone house-hunting learns to mentally remove the furnishings and evaluate the space that will be left for the new owner. Many of these rooms would not pass the test.
10
Including a twentieth-century kitchen would have allowed for the inclusion of another female (Lillian Moller Gilbreth, "the woman who invented the kitchen") as well as providing some insight into how the home's meal-preparation area has evolved from the simple "work triangle" to its place today as the multi-functional centerpiece of domestic living.
14
Like other commenters I found this topic and its content fascinating; thank you! Any such list will engender nit picking: "Why did you include THIS and not THAT?!" I'm surprised to see so little of it in the comments thus far (only 14 at the moment). Here's my candidate for most obvious incorrect exclusion: Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, CT.
71
A delightfully idiosyncratic set of choices. Cases could be made for excluding some, including many others. The British Museum Reading Room in both its original form and now transformed into the Great Court is only one possibility.
27
While I’m no world traveler, I’ve done a little in my 58 years... Paris, London, Barcelona and the usual Italy/France/Germany/European tour. I’ve always said that of all the beautiful cathedrals, castles, museums and public spaces I’ve visited, non rivals the simple majesty of the Pantheon. Loved seeing it as #2 on the list’!
62
@Melanie I, too, love the Pantheon. One of my dreams is to be there on Pentecost when Rome's firemen pour red rose petals through the oculus.
14
@John Bence
Rose Petals At The Pantheon: Celebrating Pentecost In Rome
https://www.liviahengel.com/rose-petals-pantheon-pentecost/
Includes video (1 min. 4 sec.)
5
@Melanie The feeling I had upon first entering the Pantheon in my young manhood has proven to be amongst the most immediately surprising on a rainy day in Roma not understanding that the outside of this building could house this iconic interior until I stepped into that shaft of light unhindered but shaped, directly from the sky weakened my knees.
9
My sense is that this is an eclectic rather than consensus list reflecting a somewhat arbitrary collection of interiors, probably chosen on the basis of contrarian sensibilities. Not wanting to be too negative, but it is impossible to take this seriously. The world is chock full of glorious, profound, and seriously beautiful constructed spaces; curious that the jury here seem largely to admire those inhabited by celebrities--albeit mostly from the past.
100
@john lafleur
Agree about eclectic, but whatever the exact filter, I loved this!
7
What a fascinating list. It makes me think about how, in the small decisions I make within my own home space, I am unwittingly influenced by people who thought of rooms as an art form. Twombly’s walls are fantastic. The discussion about proportions in apartments and the overuse of glass was also very interesting.
51
@L I'm glad a Soho loft was included. I think these have had a profound effect on how we see residential interior space. The Georgians liked a lot of small rooms; we prefer the open loft feel. Both have their pluses and minuses.
12
Quick glance showed very few non-Western influences. Perhaps a reflection of how narrow our design lens is.
145
Intro describes the narrow lens.
14
@Cross-eyed
i actually scanned the list KNOWING that this would be the case. we know who the “we” in the title includes and excludes!
9
@Cross-eyed:
See this from the article:
"The royal 'we' in this story’s headline was, in many cases, applied by our panelists to their own work, the way that they think about design while largely practicing in North America and Europe, which unfortunately means that entire continents such as South America and Africa weren’t under consideration as much as they would have been with another group."
18
Images of the Eames house living room in Pacific Palisades, California, with its industrial double height space and its casual mix of modern furniture (designed by the Eames of course) and folk objects from around the world, was critical to my sensibility about design, made for unpretentious living.....
147
@Andrew
Two Eames Grandchildren on Charles and Ray’s Living Room
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/garden/the-eames-house-living-room.html
6
But not a single image by Frank Lloyd Wright? Some of the spaces here are interesting, but hardly beautiful or practical. FLW’s spaces, like Falling Water or even his room at the MET, are gorgeous, practical and inspiring.
205
@Victoria Morgan
I just submitted a comment where I question the absence of Wright, and I was thinking of Fallingwater. Every room perfect, including the exterior spaces, which are rooms. Go into any room and try to find a viewpoint, perspective or vista that is not perfectly harmonious.
23
... especially if you consider Falling Water's unique natural surroundings as a room itself, making an overall impression that the building is a room in a room.
31
Not practical
8
No Eames? No Wright? No Gaudí?
10
What?
No Frank Lloyd Wright???!!!!
Oh my!
3
Awesome
2
Nancy Lancaster room is perfection. And chintz has never gone out of style.
7
For all the people complaining "Where are the women?" -- did you even read the article?
Quote: 'Where are all the female-led projects? (“We have to remember that architecture, like many industries, was male-dominated for much of history,” Delavan said. “And the field of interior design — while originally led by women, though now more evenly split between genders — is only a century or so old.”)'
5
Glaringly missing is the white “psychiatry” space with the light blue padded benches in THX1138. This absolute whiteness has influenced many, in both real and virtual spaces, including Starck, every minimalist fashion store design, the white on white shabby chic et cetera
What about Thoreau's cabin?
6
North America - and yet nothing by Wright. Hard to fathom.
4
Once again, more Western brouhaha.
Have these designers and writers for the Western wealthy never been to India, Africa, China, Mexico and beyond?
Oh, right. This publication is for the establishment elite - not for peons living in slums or hovels of mud.
14
I believe the title—"Rooms That Influence the Way We Design"—if "We" is read to mean the specific members of the jury. With that thesis the article is interesting and the illustrations lovely.
But if the authors were serious about the the sub-title—"history's most enduring and significant spaces"—the article is ridiculously navel-gazing.
This sweeping claim might be slightly more persuasive if more than a handful of the twenty-five rooms had "endured" for longer than a few decades, spanned more than a tiny sliver of Europe and North America, or were reflected in the design of rooms for anyone beyond the 1%.
16
Interesting that not one room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most influential architects of our time are not mentioned. Too pedestrian for the Times, perhaps???
3
Interesting, these selections completely omit any of the amazing interiors done by Emilio Ambasz
http://www.ambasz.com/banque-bruxelles-lambert
1
Luis Barragán, tradition, minimalism, down to the bare bones of Architecture. A lot of branches stem from his vision. Big miss in a beautiful article.
11
I loved looking at this article and thinking about all of the rooms and spaces that have influenced us all, but was surprised by so many missing masters. Palladio, Wright, Alberti, Jefferson, the Eameses, Stanford White, Saarinen, Hadid, seemed to deserve a place on this list, not to mention the interiors of ancient Japan, India and China and the Middle East. Perhaps in a world with so many diverse and diffuse visions of interior space, 25 rooms are too few to capture the glory of interior design. It would also be exciting to see some interiors that are not viewed as high design, but that have been an influence on how billions of people around the world live. I imagine for many of us, the most influential interiors of our life that provides us with comfort and solace are quite simply the hearth and kitchen of our parent's homes. Or the beloved kitchen of Julia Child in her Cambridge home.
16
I’m sure that I will be scoffed at for saying this, but I have never considered the original Philip Johnson Four Season’s dining room (the Pool Room) to be an inviting space. I understand why it’s considered to be a landmark design, why it was innovative for its time, the ways in which it influenced other designers, and why it became the place to be seen (by those who care about such things). But the proportions are so awkward for a dining space. It feels like a banquet hall, with that too-high ceiling and the undivided swathe of tables, the planters.
Forgot to mention in my other comment that there was less discussion of light, in this article, than I would expect to see in a piece on influential rooms. Light is all, for me.
9
As someone who has always been a little remedial at creating well-designed spaces after a childhood of nonstop moving and a life of rentals, I've been debating taking an interior design course (not decorating, but how humans live in and interact with spaces) next year to help me find my way. This article may be just what I needed to convince me — the spaces are fascinating and I'd love to experience all of them, and understand more of what makes them great and influential.
6
What a great list! I really enjoyed the whole thing, although I don't love all the rooms they chose. Whoever put together all the links deserves some kudos as well - hours of more beauty to look forward to!
3
This was an interesting trip, traveling through these various “rooms” (and one sculpture). Just when I was beginning to cringe at the creeping pretension, one of the team would pipe up with a practical observation. Bless them for that. My favorite, from DM, is this: “ But the only way my practice will continue is if my clients come back, and most of that is about livability and practicality. You don’t want things falling apart. The last thing you want to get is a phone call about how the air conditioning points at the shower.” That is Interior Design in a nutshell. You can our endless cats of cash at a project, knocking yourself out to create the perfect space, but in the end people need to live in, work in, or travel through all of those trophy rooms. Everything needs to function, every day.
The “elevator office” is terrifying, to me. I hope the residents didn’t have any pets wandering around the home.
1
Wow...only 14 comments as I write this one - hard to believe about such an incredible article. I didn't like some of the choices and could imagine myself lounging with a cup of tea in some of the other rooms. But all were interesting and the commentary absorbing.
I loved that Stonehenge is the first room chosen. Spectacular and inspiring even though when you visit you can only walk around the outside, not go inside...unless it's the solstice, of course.
But my favorite of all is the Japanese museum Teshima on the island of Teshima. What an incredible space. How I would love to take my shoes off and wander inside. So amazing.
Thank you so much for this world tour of spectacular spaces!
6
Yes. But would you actually want to live in any one of these rooms?
4
@MJM The Georgian room. The proportions work with plain white walls, deep dining room reds, greys...whatever. Fill it with chintz if you want or have Scandinavian wood...the perfect room.
3
I grew up in an 1860 hand-made house my mother lined with something called Firtex. She also brought in the water from a hillside spring nearby. These rooms have nothing to do with anyone west of the Ohio River.
6
Question for Mr. Watson: Would you tell us a bit more about the building itself at 12 Henrietta Street in Dublin? Is this room unaltered since the time of its being built? Judging from the Google Street View, the building seems similarly untouched. If so -- why? What were the circumstances that brought you to the building and the room?
Thanks much for your contributions here, and for the contributions of your interlocutors as well.
4
Lots of wonderful stuff here. . I guess by the "We" in the title we are to think of folks from the Eastern US. The way others of us design would include the Eames living room and the Green brothers Gamble house. But I have to say one of the reasons I pay for the Times is they do stuff like this. . what a great way to pass an hour . . Thanks!
6
Long ago and far away, I was an 18 year old on a 6 week whirlwind visit to Europe.
I was profoundly impacted the the Pantheon and would return there to just look in amazement at the beauty, trying to imagine what it was like to be there in the past. Same with the Roman Forum.
The Colosseum and Appian Way made me glad of high school Latin and ancient history classes.
I threw my coin over my shoulder, maybe one day yet my wish to return will come true.
5
KS: "But should livability be a criteria here?" It should definitely be a criteriON, but, seriously, in a residence?
3
". . . which unfortunately means that entire continents such as South America and Africa weren’t under consideration as much as they would have been with another group." I look forward to your showcasing the perspectives of "another group."
7
No art nouveau or rococo, two styles that were crucial to the development of the modern room? A list that reflects the commercial tastes of the contributors: okay, I get it. It’s not a history piece, but pretty dull.
4
Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Clearly little architecture or design of note happened elsewhere. Or is this the bias of self serving education of the West?
2
No rooms for the poor? No inventive design by those who wish to provide living space for the once extant middle class? Not one apartment interior that represents those who pack the cities because such living exists, and, the cities are packed because such a class of labor demands the necessities of such habitat? No small cottages at the end of the path in all the places on the earth where such mythic thatched roofs shield them from the sky. No world of the primitive peoples? One could go on endlessly. In short, displays of glory for kingdoms and the rich - and displays of the remarkable works of slaves (including the rocks)... Cracks me up, "How we as humans..." Yeah, one millionth of a percent of billions. The starving world has no room for your rooms. The line up of snobs who judge the standards of the absolute "room," should live in a cave for a month. Then, they would know the room that lasted longer than their temporary vanities, and will last long after we are gone.
17
@Paul R. Gurian A pertinent comment but can I suggest that next time you are in London you visit the Jeffries Museum. It's main building now features rather middle class rooms through the ages (and well worth seeing) but the whole place was originally founded as almshouses for the poor by a wealthy City philanthropist, and you can also see an example of the simple room in which one of the residents would have lived.
7
Richard Neutra, now, then and forever.
22
Spent a full morning in amazement.
7
wow - this article is worth the price of an annual subscription.
read it again!
23
Not a single woman designer? Whatever.
70
@wannabe, Reread No. 21. Andree Putman, a woman, designed the French Minister of Culture's office. Two clues you may have missed. The article referred to her as "she". Also any French person with a name ending in two "e's" is almoat certainly a female. There may have been one or two women I didn't notice as such.
As the prologue to the list rather apologetically explains it was not until very recently that there were woman architects.
10
@wannabe
Eileen Gray comes to mind.
7
@wannabe
Nancy Lancaster.
7
This article should be published as a book.
2
Oh come on. Women?
23
@Elizabeth Yake Women, in general, make spaces for living in and nurturing in - not for display - which is much more useful to humanity.
2
@Elizabeth Yake
Nancy Lancaster.
2
Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. We found--and still find--this beautiful space to exert influence that is aesthetic, spiritual, and full of personal charm. There is nothing like it in all the rooms you've chosen.
11
@ruth nadelhaft Yes, I agree- a beautiful, calm and homely space, with everything perfectly arranged.
2
What about the ancient world? Consider how the discovery of Pompeii and its houses profoundly influenced subsequent design- neoclassicism is a powerful force to this day. Or how the Italian Renaissance begat the Georgian interiors cited. When one recalls, as others have cited, the omission of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Eames or others, this actually seems rather provincial and blinkered.
22
They are all wonderful in their own way and fine examples of excellent design. For me, the most inspiring room I've ever been in is the kitchen I grew up in. The design was not the focus here. Love and nurturing was. Different topic I suppose.
5
"Do we have too many museums?"
A better question: Do we have too many talking heads?
In terms of rooms that can guide normal people in their quests for pleasing, comfortable living spaces, oddly enough the first one that comes to mind is Edith Wharton's bedroom at The Mount (Wharton's modest furnishings disappeared, but what's there now is all similar in type and quality); the second, the cozy library at Planting Fields.
Certainly any room in Pierre DuPont's little farmhouse at Longwood Gardens would suit.
These are rooms that do not try hard to be different, or even eye-catching. They're gracefully, graciously human.
17
The floating staircase in Halston's living room reminded me of Dr. No, and the Brady Bunch. Which came first? Does it matter?
9
I wish I had a good enough eye, or was hip enough, for this article, which I read in its entirety, to make sense. I can see beauty in some of the rooms, but most of them, not really. I feel the same way when reading articles about high fashion. I read about the strong messages being sent by Melania Trump or Nancy Pelosi with each outfit they wear, including their shoes. It all goes right over my head. If you are wondering why I would bother to make such a comment, it is because I bet there are more people like me than not.
93
@Madeline Conant
Agreed, thank you for "such a comment".
15
I was completely enthralled with this! I was utterly amazed that at
82 years young I could embrace the discussions and the concepts each of the participants put forth.
I found the harmony among them remarkable.
Of course we all have preferences....but I must say that the
Pantheon design belongs to the Universe.
This article completely vindicates my appreciation of
The New York Times!
17
Skara Brae (3,000 B.C.) might have made more sense if the focus was "rooms". Use of stone construction, built-in "furniture", entrance halls, circular living space, etc. Highly residential as well as having a processional way, standing stones, and relationship to landscape, ground sky and sea in on Orkney.
7
@poslug What a great thought. I'd love to visit there. I've poured over articles and pictures of Skara Brae. It would have been an excellent addition.
2
@poslug Thanks for mentioning this one. I missed its being on the list too. It's small and of course a tomb, but that's no odder roomwise than the huge restaurant dining room that did make the list. Skara Brae's light, proportion and flow are as good as anything modern. Those and its age--3,000 B.C.-- make it a profound experience. I'd like to share space there. I love it that the ability and desire to create such a space seems innate in us.
The vast majority are cold, calculated and overdesigned. Very user-unfriendly. One can see an influence that these rooms may have passed along, but overall, not the feeling I like to have walking into a room.
54
None of the rooms at Pompeii? Seems like an oversight.
8
Terrific concept for an article and loved going through them all.
But I do not get Le Corbusier’s Le Cabanon.
To me, it still looks like an American finished basement c. 1960.
19
Why are the arbiters of taste in architecture and home design so slow to adopt more sustainable ways of living?
18
Great idea! I hope you continue to explore the creation of spaces. Personally, I am surprised by the absence of Whistler's Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room.
7
Absolutely wonderful article! I was sad when it ended.
5
Yes, even tho it was overwhelming in a way. Like when one used to be able to open the Times of a weekday morning and find something by Russell Baker... a kind of miracle.
Thank you.
2
Some are beautiful, some lofty, some just a clutter of objects (Bloomsbury, really?), and some just a depressing concrete barrenscape.
For a gorgeous room with very human proportions and extraordinarily tasteful design check out the Frank Lloyd Wright room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American wing. If I had the opportunity to build a house, I would build one around a room like that.
26
Nice rooms, for sure. But no rooms by Frank Lloyd Wright? No rooms by Louis I. Kahn, who defined 'room' in terms of light and shadow and how light equates to infinite change. Kahn said a street is a series of rooms.
41
“While its portico, reached by wide steps of Numidian yellow marble, was made in classically Greek style (squared off, with granite columns) once you enter the circular part of the building, you find a shrine to the motifs and mathematical obsessions of the Holy Roman Empire.”
I don’t understand how this reflect upon the Holy Roman Empire.
5
Most of the rooms are stunning, in the sense that they made me stop and want to know more about them... but no Frank Lloyd Wright? I think some of his interiors, even unfurnished, are seminal examples of elegance and proportion.
13
No Frank Lloyd Wright rooms? I love the living room at Fallingwater. Correction: I love every room at Fallingwater, even the kitchen, maybe especially the kitchen. Or maybe the bedrooms. Or the guest house. I don’t like his large California houses, but his smaller Usonian style houses are at a perfect scale for humans (even though some of the strictures and rules he imposed were inhuman).
12
Some of those choices I would have set aside to make place for the living room of Wright's Robie house or the interior of his Unitarian church..rooms which are integrated works rather than assemblages of 'things'
20
Le Corbusier's Cabanon --- which he built just behind Eileen's Gray's wonderful, miniature modernist villa in Roquebrune -Cap- Martin after stalking the Gray villa for 20 years) is chosen -- and Gray's incredibly innovative structure, E1027, is not selected?
I've been to both and omitting the great Eileen Gray's villa as a significant "room" is tantamount to an art crime.
14
I'm not sure how the Eames house didn't make this list/
12
Bravo! Bravo!
The only stunning house missed out in the wise selection is Casa das Canoas (Canoe House), a stunning Oscar Niemeyer 1951 modernist curvilinear project on the mountain, under the shade of the luscious tropical forest of Rio de Janeiro facing the Atlantic ocean...
Otherwise: Bravo!
Cynthia Garcia
2
I think this is one of my favorite articles I've ever read! Would love to see more content like this.
7
This is a great article. Let's do it again! Pick another group of panelists and consider Frank Lloyd Wright, southwestern kivas, San Antonio missions, glass igloos in Finland, more tea houses, huts in Bali, cave and cliff dwellings. It is astounding how people create space to come together.
73
This demonstrates why interior designers are not architects.
11
"Georgian" is synonymous with "Hanoverian," not just kings who happened to be named George. As such, it encompasses the reign of William IV, who preceded Victoria.
1
Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Bank... the greatest interior ever conceived, start to finish, top to bottom. Like entering heaven.
7
What about seagram building by mies van der rohe?
1
@Alno The article is about rooms (fairly liberally interpreted) and includes the Four Seasons restaurant in that building which it cites as a joint creation of van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson.
@Alno
*ROOMS*
Eliel Saarinen's dining room at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. (And yes, Eero grew up there.)
5
@Doug
Saarinen House: A Total Work of Art
https://cranbrookartmuseum.org/tours/saarinen-house/
Would like to have seen Georgia O’Keeffe’s home represented. Stunning...
19
Great piece. Another facet of the diamond that is the New York Times.
5
Eileen Gray E1027 house and its living area is certainly one of the top 25 influential 20th century ( and timeless) interiors missing form your list.
1
Who chose the jury. This so typical with the design media - a bunch of gatekeepers picking a bunch of gatekeepers ....
25
Altogether, a classic example of the bubble room in which this effete group resides. Yes, no argument that spaces we admire after hundreds, if not thousands of years have influence. But, many of the recent example are not influential; rather, they are rather silly in their little extravagant niches. And, as others have noted, the lack of inclusion of titans of influence (Wright) highlights this.
12
Re: Pantheon
"you find a shrine to the motifs and mathematical obsessions of the Holy Roman Empire."
Huh?!?The HRE didn't appear for a millennium after the Pantheon's construction. Methinks it is less Holy -- and more Roman Empire.
11
@bob Exactly. The world would be a better place if people didn't just make stuff up. Also, I'm sceptical that either the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire had "mathematical obsessions."
Not a single entry for California? Hmm.
32
@Annabelle K., I suspect that the most obvious California choices — Frank Lloyd Wright, Bernard Maybeck or Julia Morgan — would be considered too predictable by these folks. They were going for something different. Yet some of these are predictable.
2
Clive Bell was an art critic/essayist. I've never read that he painted. Duncan Grant was the best known painter of the group, in addition to being Vanessa Bell's lover and father of her third child.
14
@A little surprised in: You might want to Google “Clive Bell paintings.” Yes, he painted. Rather well, really.
3
In addition to being openly gay
These are wonderful. I am happy to see that there is diversity across time period and geographic region. There are so many representations of beauty in the spaces we inhabit.
16
To miss the American Arts and Crafts (Wright, Greene and Greene) while including relatively design-insignificant society rooms says a lot about the jury. A big miss.
170
@Tom There is some nice art on the walls, however.
@Tom
Strongly agree. Not including, say, the living room at Fallingwater or Wright's Tokyo hotel! Snobs?
8
@Jonathan Smoots totally--also Wright's Robie House or 100 others, Unity Temple (one of the best rooms in the world), or Greene and Greene's Gamble House...
5
A very interesting compilation, unlike anything I have seen before.
I was surprised to see no interiors by Charles and Ray Eames, Joseph Paul D'Urso, or John Pawson.
33
@Charles E Flynn or the living room on Friends.
1
Wonderful article. If I didn’t understand why a room was chosen, the discussion was enlightening.
17
Great idea, loved this.
27
This is probably one of the best articles I have ever read. Kudos!
16
wow.
This article, the explanations, the visuals, the conversations, create a virtual room that encloses and inspires me.
16