Christopher Dresser: not my great-grandmother's Victorian

See this tea set?

Teapot and Creamer, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

What year would you think that was made? How about this one?

Teapot, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Both of those objects date to around 1880 and they were designed by Christopher Dresser, a man regarded as the world's first, independent industrial designer. I saw both at a retrospective of Dresser's work back in 2004 at the Cooper Hewitt in New York. The museum displayed a collection of Dresser's creations in an exhibit called The Shock of the Old. The exhibit then moved on to London's Victoria and Albert Museum where it was called Christopher Dresser: A Design Revolution.

Vase, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Linthorpe Art Pottery, Yorkshire

I was reminded of that exhibit because I'm working on a post with the marketing folks at MOMA on exhibit they have coming up about modernist kitchens in the early 20th Century. That's coming next week, but I want to dwell on Mr. Dresser here today.

Toast Rack, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Prior to seeing those teapots at the Cooper Hewitt, I'd always though that modernism was strictly a 20th century impulse but as you can see from Dresser's work here, modernism's roots dig well into the 19th Century. So even though the conventional wisdom holds that household objects from 130 years ago didn't look like this:

Decanter, Christopher Dresser c. 1879

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Dresser's popularity at the time shows that the Rococo mishmash of ornamentation that most people think of when they think Victorian wasn't universal.

Footed bowl, Christopher Dresser c. 1885

Manufactured by Elkington and Company

Dresser was an industrial designer, his work was meant to be mass produced and to sell. Of course some of his projects were more typical of the time. But what interests me about him are his projects that look forward to a new era all together.

Decanter, Christopher Dresser c. 1879

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

He was from all accounts an interesting man. He was a botanist by trade and was awarded his doctorate before he traded in his study of plants for the study and creation of objects. It was through his observations of the economy of plant design that he started to rethink the decorative arts. A trip to Japan in 1876 altered his views on ornament permanently. His willingness to look to the forms of other cultures, notably Japanese and Arabian, and to integrate them into his work spawned the wide acceptance of these forms and styles.

Toast Rack, Christopher Dresser c. 1881

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

Like many of his contemporaries, Dresser was involved in the movement to reform design. Remember that the later 19th Century was a time of great reform movements. The wealth generated by the industrial revolution spawned a class of people who were determined to reform and reinvent their entire society. Design reform was of a piece with sanitary reform, prison reform, workplace reform, etc. The Victorians reformers were going to improve the lot of everybody. Design reform was an attempt to mass produce tasteful objects for the middle and lower classes. Dresser's unadorned objects were not only new, they were less-costly to produce and his sensibilities fit the time when he lived to a T.

Chair, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by Chubb and Company 

for the Art Furnishers' Alliance

Christopher Dresser was a household name in England by the time he died in 1904, I don't think it's a stretch to say he was the 19th Century's Philippe Starck. He was a fascinating man and you can read more of Dresser's biography on the British Design Museum's website.

Tureen, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

I'm old enough to have had a great-grandmother who was keeping house at the time when Dresser was plying his trade. I wonder what she would have thought of his take on their times, the Victorian Era?

Fan, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

for the Art Furnishers' Alliance

Cabinet hardware by DuVerre adds the finishing touch

I've long admired DuVerre hardware and it's both a pleasure and an honor to sell it now. DuVerre takes a different approach to what's all-too-frequently a mundane afterthought and makes it the center of attention. How can something like this not be the attention grabber wherever it's used?

Though most often used on cabinetry doors and drawers, this hardware's beautiful enough that it could be used anywhere. I can see it on furniture, on closet doors, even used as hooks in a bathroom or master suite.

DuVerre works with such design luminaries as Clodagh, Christopher Smith, Scot Laughton, William Harvey and many more. The results of these collaboration are unlike anything else out there. Here are some more terrific examples of what's available.

You can see the rest of their collection on their website and if you're ever interested in having any of these selection in your own home, I can help you with that. That wasn't too obvious was it? Anyhow, don't settle for an afterthought, use DuVerre for a real finishing touch.

St. Petersburg's Signature is a signature building

A year ago a building down the street from me got its certificate of occupancy after a nearly two year build. I can see over downtown from my living room windows and watching this building rise from ground was two year long thrill. The building is called the Signature and it's a waterfront condominium tower and street-level work/ live space. The building's a stunner and made all the more so when its compared to the usual dreck that gets built on waterfronts in the fair state I call home.

The Signature was designed by architect Ralph Johnson from Chicago's Perkins + Will. I cannot think of a more thoughtful and interesting building on Florida's entire west coast.

The complex is actually a complex of lofts and storefronts that ring the tower and all told the project takes up a whole block of downtown St. Pete.

I see the building from its northern elevation and when viewed from the north or the south it appears to be a monolith ringed with balconies and topped with a true roof.

Seen from the east, the building all but disappears. The leading edge of the tower comes to a perfect, 372-foot tall leading edge that faces the water. The architect designed the building to be an homage to the boat sails in the marinas downtown and his homage works. This is a 36-story building that's 372 feet tall and it appears to be as graceful and airy as any sail could ever hope to be.

In a fit of thoughtfulness, the building's orientation minimizes the blocked water views in the neighboring towers and it leaves a surprisingly small footprint on St. Pete's rightfully bally-hooed, accessible waterfront.

I walked around it the other afternoon and caught some of it's more pleasing angles. Things being what they are in the real estate market here, there are still units available in the Signature and at this stage of the game, the prices start at $185K. That's about a third of the entry-level asking price made available pre-construction. By local standards, that's an unheard of asking price. The building's extremely well-built and the level of finishes the builder built into the units is surprisingly good.

In every way imaginable, the Signature is a signature building for my beloved St. Pete and its place along waterfront marks a real departure from what's expected out of St. Pete. This was after all, once a city referred to as "God's Waiting Room." My how times have changed.

Modern history can be yours for a cool two million

Philip Johnson's Booth House is in Westchester County, New York and it's been on the market since April. The Booth House was Philip Johnson's first private commission and the house was completed in 1946, three years before his iconic Glass House in New Canaan, CT. Johnson lived in the Glass House until his death at age 98 in 2005. He was survived by his longtime partner David Whitney. Upon Whitney's death a few months later, the Glass House was left to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is now open to the public.

Philip Johnson's Glass House

Philip Johnson was the face of 20th Century American architecture. I'm sure some of my architect pals would love to argue that point but in my mind he was. His list of friends, foes and collaborators reads like a who's who of the last century. He collaborated with Mies van der Rohe, offended Frank Lloyd Wright (I think everybody did), and introduced such notables as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier to the American public. In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art and it was at that museum in 1932 he mounted an exhibition called  "The International Style: Architecture since 1922."

International Style and Modernism were American architecture for the next four decades. Like Modernism, International Style believed in simplified form and a rejection of ornament. Johnson's Seagram Building from 1956 is a brilliant example of the International Style.

It's easy to dismiss International Style today but it was very much a product of its time. The Internationalists rejected everything that symbolized pre-war Europe. Ornament and artifice represented the tribal conflicts that plunged the world into first one and then a second World War. The level of disruption of those two events cannot be overstated. In its way, Johnson's Seagram Building is a repudiation of that conflict and an attempt to usher in a new era of cooperation and peace. What happened to Beaux Arts? It rode off on death's pale horse, that's what happened.

Johnson and his contemporaries began to see the Internationalist Style as a dead end and the Post-Modernism that followed began to embrace stylized ornamentation and symmetry. Johnson's AT&T Building from the early '80s with its Chippendale pediment shows his his take on Post-Modernism well.

Johnson was a cultural force in ways beyond his buildings, through his position at MOMA he promoted such artists as Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and many more. Philip Johnson brought world culture to the US and in just as many ways brought US culture to the world.

And just think, for a mere two million dollars you could own a piece of modern history.

Meritalia strikes again

The name of this chair is Origine du Monde, Maybe!

It's upholstered in memory foam and promises to provide a "near uterine sensuality." The Origine du Monde, Maybe! was designed by Italo Rota for Meritalia. I think it's safe to say that theirs is the first time such a promise was made by a piece of furniture. Maybe I'm not in the target market, but near uterine sensuality doesn't land real well over here. Whattya think?