BizJournals.com reports that the Louisville Antique Mall will close. At a meeting last night, owner Denise Golden told dealers the mall will close at the end of June.

"The antique business has been hit especially hard during this economic recession," Golden said in a news release. "Antiques are not essential purchases, and although traffic has been good through the mall, people just aren’t spending as much."

The mall moved to its current location at 834 E. Broadway in January 2008, after operating on Goss Avenue from 1983 to 2008. Golden said in the release that the renovated, five-story art deco building that currently houses the antique mall is for sale.

Winterthur Museum & Country Estate has initiated new tour offerings and pricing options to provide visitors with greater opportunities to enjoy its world-class collections of American decorative arts.  

Winterthur will now offer visitors a single ticket option, providing them with full access to the Winterthur Garden and Galleries as well as an introductory tour showcasing some of the most spectacular rooms in the 175-room house. The new adult general admission rate will be $18, a $2 savings from Winterthur’s former two-tier pricing structure of $15 for Garden and Galleries admission plus an additional $5 fee for a house tour. The tours will be offered daily with first tours of the house departing at 10:30 am and final tours departing at 3:30 pm. Admission tickets are valid for two consecutive days.  

In addition, Winterthur will now offer specialized one- and two-hour reserved tours on a rotating schedule. Tour topics will change seasonally and will provide in-depth opportunities to focus on specific parts of the 85,000-object collection or on special themes.  In March, the one-hour tour will be “Distinctive Collections,” providing a wide overview of the collections amassed by Henry Francis du Pont, and providing visitors with opportunities to appreciate the collection in period-era settings.

Two options will be available in March for two-hour tours.  “Living with Antiques I” and “Living with Antiques II” will provide detailed looks at specific objects in Winterthur’s collection of American decorative arts, showcased in period rooms throughout the house. The one- and two-hour tours will depart at scheduled times throughout the day.  Details on tour times and offerings are available by contacting 800.448.3883 or by visiting winterthur.org.

“These new admission offerings will make it easier for first-time visitors to sample all of the wonderful facets of Winterthur and will also provide return visitors with fresh, new ways to explore the collections,” said Jeff Groff, director of public programs.  

Winterthur’s general admission also provides opportunities to enjoy special exhibitions, narrated garden tram tours (weather permitting), the Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens, and the Enchanted Woods children’s garden.

Full general admission pricing is as follows:

$18 adults
$16 students and seniors
$5 for ages 2–11
Children under 2 are admitted free with a paying adult.
General admission for Members is free.
Group discounts are available by contacting 800.448.3883.
Tickets are valid for two consecutive days.

###

Winterthur Museum & Country Estate—known worldwide for its preeminent collection of American antiques, naturalistic garden, and research library for the study of American art and material culture—offers a variety of tours, exhibitions, programs, and activities throughout the year. Winterthur has been named one of the country’s “10 great places of historic proportions” by USA Today and “one of the 10 grandest mansions in America” by Budget Travel.  

 Museum hours are 10 am to 5 pm, Tuesday–Sunday. Winterthur, located on Route 52, six miles northwest of Wilmington, Delaware, and five miles south of U.S. Route 1, is closed Mondays (except holidays and during Yuletide), Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. Winterthur is committed to accessible programming for all. For information, including special services, call 800.448.3883, 302.888.4600, or TTY 302.888.4907. Online, visit winterthur.org.

Karen here ...

I love books. Period. I don't know when I became aware of that fact, but I suspect I've been a latent bibliophile for some time, but never had the opportunity to really encourage the trait and let it thrive — until fairly recently. Auctions abound — and books go for the proverbial song at auctions.

My husband and I purchased an amazingly decrepit, huge old turn-of-the-century farmhouse back in 1995. It was what many people call a "fixer-upper." What an understatement! We actually had relatives say, "Strike a match!" but for the $23,500 price tag and all the potential we saw, we just couldn't pass it up!

As our work progressed on the house, ever so slowly, over the years we developed dreams/plans about what we would do with each room. A couple of years ago, we turned one of those dreams into a plan and put in a library, complete with built-in oak floor-to-ceiling bookcases. We wanted bookcases to cover as much wall space as possible, because over the years we've accumulated quite a collection of books: everything from contemporary novels to 19th-century reference books. Well, we're at a point now where the shelves are all filled, I'm reading as fast as I can and moving out the novels as I read them, and there's still a surplus.

And then I received boxes upon boxes of old books in the settlement of an estate.

My library runneth over.

Time to step up the pace in moving out the books that I know I'll never read, and those that don't really "speak" to me or hold a tight enough grip on my heart. It's hard to let any of them go, but fortunately, we bibliophiles tend to hang together, so I know I'll find suitable homes for those orphans who won't be able to stay with me.

Who was it that said we should surround ourselves with great books, even if we never read them ...

Anyway, Swann Galleries just had an auction, the Art, Press & Illustrated Books, and 19th & 20th Century Literature auction, and they sent us the highlights (below). I don't have anything so extravagant as these in my collection, but I can always daydream about them ...

Among the highlights of Swann Galleries’ two-part auction of Art, Press & Illustrated Books, and 19th & 20th Century Literature on April 24 were original illustrations, some used in well-known books, some that never appeared in print, and an exceedingly rare copy of the first work published by Leonard Baskin’s famed Gehenna Press.

Christine von der Linn, Swann Galleries Art and Modern Literature Book Specialist, said, “This sale featured many unusual items, some never seen at auction before and others that hadn't appeared on the market in a long time. This made for a lively preview exhibition and a very successful auction. Prices for graphic material in particular were high—many of the art journals with original lithographs, etchings and woodcuts, and Art Deco pochoir portfolios were hotly contested.”

A group of three original watercolor illustrations from the 1950s by Félix Lorioux, best known for his illustrations of children’s books by Charles Perrault, brought $12,000*; and a set of 44 Art Deco gouache illustrations with text by poster artist Mary Louise Lawser for an unpublished children’s book titled Now A Days sold for $10,200.

A collection of works by Ludwig Bemelmans, popularly known as the author and illustrator who created the Madeline series, included a circa 1940 watercolor of a street scene, L’Apres-midi en face du Capitole de la belle ville de Sainte Paul, $11,400; and two signed lithographs, They Went Looking High and Low, from Madeline’s Rescue, $5,280, and To the Tiger in the Zoo, Madeline just said “Pooh, Pooh,” from Madeline, $5,040.

The featured small press book, a signed and inscribed copy of Leonard Baskin’s On a Pyre of Withered Roses, New Haven, 1942, realized $9,000. Baskin’s first book and the first publication of his Gehenna Press, this was the first copy ever to appear at auction and the only known copy outside that belonging to the Baskin family.

Beautiful works with pochoir illustrations included Sonia Delaunay’s Compositions Couleurs Idees, with 40 plates for textiles, wallpapers and other decorative uses, Paris, 1930, which sold for a record $7,350; Eugène Grasset’s La Plante et ses applications Ornementales, with 72 plates, Paris, 1895, $6,960; Paul Iribe’s own copy of his Les Robes de Paul Poiret, with 10 plates, one of 250, Paris, 1908, $5,760; Aleksandr Pushkin’s Conte de Tsar Saltan et de son fils le Glorieux . . . de Cynge, with spirited illustrations by Natalia Gontcharova, Paris, 1921, $4,655; and Emile-Alain Seguy’s Prismes, with 40 brilliant plates of natural reflections of light, Paris, circa 1930, $2,640.

Two gorgeous examples of French Art Nouveau illustrated books were La Porte des Rêves with illustrations by Georges de Feure, one of 200 copies printed on Japan paper, Paris, 1899, and Carlos Schwabe’s Hespérus, one of 20 reserved for member of the Société “Les XX,” Paris, 1904, $3,600 each.

Rounding out the illustrated books was Marc-George Mallet’s Le Ronde des Déesses, with an engraved frontispiece by Arthur Szyk, inscribed by the author, and with five inscribed and signed postcards by Szyk to the man who gave him his first solo show in Paris, Auguste Decour, Paris, 1925, $4,800.           

Modern Art highlights included a beautiful copy of Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans, a signed copy of Henri Matisse’s last book, Paris, 1950, $6,000; a small archive of Salvador Dalí material once belonging to his friends Maria and Jaume Miravitlles, which included a two-page inscribed pen drawing of Don Quixote, late 1950s, $19,200; Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, one of 100 deluxe copies signed by Chagall, with an original numbered etching, New York, 1964, a record $5,760; and Andy Warhol’s Exposures, signed and inscribed to fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, with a signed photograph of a nude male posterior, New York, 1979, $5,280.

Part two of the auction was devoted to 19th & 20th Century Literature. Highlights of a comprehensive Robert Frost collection included a beautiful copy of his first regularly published book, A Boy's Will, inscribed and signed, in the rare gilt-stamped bronzed brown pebble cloth binding, London, 1913, $10,800; two variant editions of the same title, one with a binding of cream boards, London, 1913, the other one of only three variant copies in cream wrappers, first edition, second issue, London, 1913, $4,080 each; and an inscribed copy of North of Boston, first edition, one of 200, London, 1914, $3,360.

Other literature highlights were Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., first edition in the original seven parts, New York, 1819-20, a record $5,760; first editions of William Combe, The English Dance of Death, and The English Dance of Life, together, three volumes, London, 1815-16, 1817, $3,600; and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or There and Back Again, first edition, first impression, London, 1937, which brought $3,600—even without the dust jacket.

You can look for this info in story form on AntiqueTrader.com, which will be placed soon, complete with some images to highlight the story.

Here's a very cool new site for an architecture online magazine.

Great stuff. A lot of insight into modern htinking on building, and a great place for all those new college grads with architecture degrees, which is the new art history...

This is a happy thing for lovers of Modern architecture - Wright in particular - which anyone that knows me knows that I am.



Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Phoenix, an absolute masterpiece among the master's masterpieces, has finally gotten approval for a preservation plan from Phoenix and the Wright foundation. The link is to the East Valley Tribune.

My in-laws live in Scottsdale - Hi Cy and Joan! - and they took my wife and I out there for a tour of the place about five years ago, which was precisely the time I started to get thoroughly obsessed with modern architecture in general on a wide scale. It was a real eye-opener, touring those wonderful buildings, feeling the harmony with nature that informs their very existence. I could feel the presence of the master on the grounds and I sorely wished to be young again and be able to go to architecture school there.

The air is charmed at Taliesin West, and the buildings themselves rise out of the desert sand and blend with the surrounding flora and fauna in ways that are very different from Wright's other masterworks. It was, after all, the place where he would spend his winters, and would educate many of his apprentices. I will admit to you that, more than once on that tour, I thought about sneaking off and hiding in a closet until closing time so I could live there during off hours. This, though, was bound to have been a lonely enterprise, so I abandoned it. Plus I love my wife and didn't really want to put that kind of strain on our marriage...



Just this past March, visiting my in-laws - Hi again Cy and Joan - I spoke with my father-in-law about the disrepair that Taliesin West was in and the need for it to be preserved. He said he didn't know what was going to happen to it, and I lamented that that incredible campus might be razed, or crumble into dust. Obvioulsy Wright designed some complex buildings, with infrastructure that is nearly impossible to keep going in its original state. The city of Phoenix, though, with its taste for good architecture, knows what it has and has done the right thing by it.

Taliesin West now has the chance to survive into the future, and to have its lessons, it incredible lines and symmetry, preserved for generations to come. In an age and society that is increasingly disposable, it's good to see that this is happening, and that rare genius is being preserved.

It seems now that Islamic art is absolutely everywhere, and the amount of money that it's fetching - congruent with the amount of ire it's raising in some instances - is pretty amazing.

I've already written about it a few times this week and last week.

It started the attempted sale of some armor once, possibly, belonging to a revered Sikh Guru. Then a 12th century key to the holiest pilgrimage site in Mecca, and now, just yesterday, a dagger once belonging to Shah Jahan - arguably the greatest of India's Golden Age Mugal emporers - the man who built the Taj Mahal, and raised Islamic art and architecture to amazing levels in his reign, sold at Bonham's in London for nearly $3,000,000.



You have to admit, looking at it, that it's a thing of extraordinary beauty, made even more important by its provenance of having belonged to Shah Jahan, a man from whom very few personal relics survive. $3M seems like alot to spend, but as I wrote about the Hajj key yesterday, reclaiming cultural history is an expensive game, and them that have the bucks don't necessarily think of it as a numbers game. Face it, if you have all the bills in the Monopoly game, there's nothing on the board that's out of range.

Again, it went to an anonymous bidder who didn't wish to be identified. Who knows who it is, but most likely it was someone who was unhappy almsot 20 years ago when the Shah of Iran sold it to Jacques Desenfans, along with a lot of other things in the sale, on a visit in 1969, when the Shah's empire was just starting to wobble. That bit of its history has been more downplayed in the hubbub over its sale, but it's all part of the history of such a remarkable piece.

I'm not sure if the dagger is considered a holy relic, so I have no feeling on it being sold. If it is considered such, along with much of the other Islamic "art" that's been coming on the block, then I do have to take issue. Pieces of spiritual significance, whatever the faith, shouldn't be made available for a price. I have to think, though, the Shah Jahan dagger isn't considered spiritually important for Muslims, because there was no outcry, such as the one over the Sikh armor.



Shah Jahan's buildings and his name dot India, most notably the Taj, which he built as a masoleum for his wife, Mumtaz, when she died. I've seen the Taj Mahal, and it's an amazing site, especially if you can get there very early in the morning before the touts, the cars, the tourists and the choking, nasty smog from the copious cars the swarm Agra all day. There are few buildings in the world that can match it, or its creativity.

This is a link to an interview with the winner of The Pritzker Prize for Architecture, Jean Nouvel.



The prize is the top award given to modern architects, and is normally the crowning achievement of a glorious career, rather than something that plucks an obscure designer from the mist of anonymity.

Nouvel is an interesting guy, and who am I to say who should and should notbe given what they're given. I have to say that, as interesting as his ideas are, and sound, man-oh-man is this a pretentious interview. I was waiting for the interviewer to ask if he could give him a kiss, or put a polish on that done... (As you can see by my pick above, I need a polist too, now and then...)

Anyway... Check it out. The pic here, though you can't see it too well, is Nouvel's proposed design for the Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum.

A giant of Modern Architecture has died. Ralph Rapson designed a lot of important structures, including the Greenbelt House and the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota. A true icon of the form.

 
Tom Wallace / Star Tribune

Rest in peace. And thanks for the buildings.
 

Interesting, but probably not as rare as we'd like to think.

This St. Louis dealer in supposedly antique wood is going to be paying a hefty fine and maybe seeing the inside of Club Fed for a while. It just goes to show that you have to be wary of who you buy from, and alays do you research, even if your next antique is going to be your floor.

This story comes via the St. Louis Business Journal.

Not so sure I agree with the blog author on the post here aboue modern houses in old neighborhoods, and how new architecture should mix.

I do, however, respect the opinion and love the debate.

Personally, I like a bold statement in an old neighborhood, especially if it's meant to be so and if - if - it's well done. If it's hideous, then torch the sucker!

Check it out.

This will be the last post about Modern architecture today, I promise. As you might be able to tell, I'm a bit of a biulding nut.

I wrote below, in the post about IBM building 25, about the U.S., and the world, lagging behind Abu Dabhi in architectural innovation, and this site only goes to prove it.

Look at what Dubai has planned for itself. Putting all the inequities in that society aside, it's quite amazing, really. If Dubai can pull of all of these buildings, it will truly outshine, archiecturally, anything America or the world has pulled off in terms of imagination and innovation of urban space.

Just a big wow here for some of these buildings. The one below is but a sampling of the amazing stuff being planned there.

The tallest building in the world? A resort, literally, in the louds... Crazy, man, crazy...

The big question is will it all be built, and will it last?

Cool post from glivingtv.com about a Chicago architecture firm chosen to design the greenest building ever, The Masdar Development in Abu Dhabi.



One of the things that Middle Eastern countries with gobs of cash, and gobs of oil, are doing is pushing the design envelope on Modern Architecture - sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worst - but this is a pretty good looking building and a great idea. The philosophical underpinings of it, minus the exorbitant cost and the big "if" of will it ever get finished, will have repercussions throughout the world of green building.

Give it a look. Cool.

This was widely covered, and hailed in the MSM the last few days. I don't know... Philosophically speaking, I find it a little daunting and frightening. A tangible reminder of the damage that humans are wreaking on the planet at alarming places.

It's the Svalbard Seed Vault in Longyearbyen, Norway (nice name). You can see the below pics here.



Architecturally, though, I think - in fine Scandanavian Moderne fashion, I might add - the building is pretty awesome, a real tribute to the modern aesthetic, not that visitors to the planet eons from now will appreciate the differences in Lloyd Wright and, say, Gropius...

It's as if, in a million years or so - hopefully longer - if the planet is rid of humans and retakes everything, then we're visited by our future progeny returned to the homeworld to see exactly where they sprang from - stick with me - thart they would find not only the seed as proof that we wanted to preserve our existences, but a really cool building refelctive of the best of modern design of the time. Man... Won't those bionetic cyborgs be impressed.

Most importantly, the American eggplant will survive.

From the Web site:

    Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Arctic Seed Vault Opens Doors for 100 Million Seeds

    Ceremony Marking Unprecedented Effort to Protect Global Agriculture Draws World Leaders and     Seeds from Over 100 Countries

    LONGYEARBYEN, NORWAY (26 FEBRUARY 2008) - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened today     on a remote island in the Arctic Circle, receiving inaugural shipments of 100 million seeds that         originated in over 100 countries. With the deposits ranging from unique varieties of major African     and Asian food staples such as maize, rice, wheat, cowpea, and sorghum to European and South     American varieties of eggplant, lettuce, barley, and potato, the first deposits into the seed vault     represent the most comprehensive and diverse collection of food crop seeds being held anywhere     in the world.  

This is about an exhibition of mid-20th century American Roadside architecture - pictures of it, at least - making its way across... are you ready?... Macedonia.



Yes, one of the most ancient places on the globe is getting a good look at how American represented itself architecturally in the era of post-war business hedonism.

Personally, I love this kind of architecture and remember fondly many roadtrips as a kid in Texas and in my 20s - during those blissful summers when i had nothing to do and a car to take to do it - when my friends and I would literally set out for a few days at a time and seek out these places. The more dated the better. I truly believe that America's rapidly dissapearing roadside architecture is replete with gems and they should be saved, if only for the enjoyment of the world and the throngs of Macedonian tourists that are bound to be flocking to our rapidly decaying rural highways...

Hate to see something like this, as reported by The Preservationist Online.

These lovely old houses in Massachusetts are amazing and this one was all set for restoration... Someone decided to toss a match on it... I wonder how they can sleep at night, or if they do at all. Maybe it was an organized thing. Maybe it was a bunch of idiot kids, and maybe it was a crackhead who dropped their pipe... Hate this, especially when it was going to be brought back to life...

Check it out.