Happy birthday Michelangelo

535 years ago today, the world was graced with the arrival of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. He was born to what would now be a middle class family in Caprese, in the region of Tuscany.

No one could have known at the time, but Michelangelo and his peers would change the course of human history. The body of work and thought left behind by these men is staggering.

His David is arguably his most famous and lasting work, but it's not possible to spend any time in Italy without seeing his footprints.

My favorite Michelangelo project is the Campidoglio in Rome. The Campidoglio is a Piazza that marks the spot where ancient Rome was founded and where it's governed today.

The Campidoglio is a sloping trapezoid and Michelangelo pulled off an incredible act of forced perspective when he designed the piazza.

This is an engraving from 1568 by Étienne Dupérac that shows Michelangelo's solution. Everything hinged on the shape of the pavement. The spoked Easter egg at the center makes the piazza appear to be perfectly rectangular. Like everything from the Renaissance, the shape he designed was rife with symbolism. It's said to allude to the constellations though what it really represents will never be known. Pope Paul III, who commissioned it, was sufficiently suspicious of the motives behind the shape that the pavement wasn't completed until 1940.

So happy birthday sir. I for one am thrilled that you once walked the earth. I have a sneaky feeling I'm not alone in that.

All images from Wikicommons.

Sink lust?

You can have the faucet in this photo, but check out this sink.

It has a coordinated bathtub too, but I'm all about the sink.

This bathroom was at the Paris trade show Maison et Objet last January, and everything here is from Tetard-Haudidquez-Grisoni, also known as THG.

What do we think? Yea? Nay?

I keep coming back to this stuff from THG. I think the idea of French bath fixtures feeds a deep-seated need I have for tap handles like this.

Haughty I know, but boy oh boy does that amuse me.

Jellio is more than Gummi Bear chandeliers

This chandelier made the rounds of the internet this week and after the fifth time I saw it, I followed the link back from whence it came.

The chandelier is the product of a company called Jellio, and Jellio makes childhood-themed furnishings for adults. Ordinarily, I resent these kinds of forced marches back into the deep recesses of my youth, but these guys are onto something. What they're onto is that the vein they're tapping belongs to me and just about everybody else who was born before 1970. Three cheers for post boomers! Not that there's anything wrong with baby boomers but get off the stage already.

So even though I can't imagine using some of this stuff in a project, it's nice to know Jellio's out there.

This is a magazine rack made from two interlocking monkeys. They're straight from a Barrel of Monkeys and it's just subtle enough that I like this genuinely.

These babies are what sold me.

They are vases that are oversized handle grips from a sting ray bicycle. Oh man! They even have detachable streamers.

Remember the wood and steel xylophones that were sold as kids toys? Do they still make stuff like this?

Anyhow, here the shape has been turned into a coffee table. No sound, but something like this just might translate into the right room.

This is another coffee table and it's pretty self-explanatory.

What makes this eerily authentic is that its a soft foam core covered in vinyl, just like car seats used to be. Excellent.

I grew up in a house with six boys in it. We made a lot of models over the years and I'd all but forgotten that whole process until I saw this.

That wall hanging is based on the shape that chrome parts for a model car came out of the box. It's brilliant actually. Call me crazy, but something like this would actually work in the right room.

Jellio also does custom work and here's where they convinced me of their skill and genius.

This is a Hotwheels mosaic.

It's made from what else but Hotwheels.

I'm glad you're out there Jellio, keep at it. Check out the rest of their wares on their website.

Here's that lavatory faucet again

In case you missed it, that Bali faucet by Graff is a knock out, It's been haunting me and here's why.

When I was a kid, my family had a rather rustic cottage in rural Ontario and we had one of these as a ktichen faucet.

Here's Graff's modern take on that same idea. I'm astounded!

Help me Grant Wood

Grant Wood is best remembered for his classic painting, American Gothic.

American Gothic is still hanging in the museum where it was unveiled in 1930, the Art Institute of Chicago. It won a $300 prize and went on to become one of the most readily identifiable artistic works in human history. 5t gets parodied endlessly and I think it does that is that the work itself is a parody but at the same time it's an homage. Grant Wood walked a line between honor and mockery in that painting and in a lot of his work and frankly, that they key to his longevity.

That painting appeals to people who want to celebrate American provincialism and it appeals to people who are repulsed by it at the same time. What a feat Mr. Wood, good job.

I am working on a presentation I'm giving at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show next month and I've been given carte blanche to do whatever I want. Within reason of course, I'll be designing a kitchen and explaining the software I use as I do it. The show's in Chicago so I want to make it relate to Chicago in some way.

I can have this kitchen be anything and I like it when my designs tell a story. The Art Institute of Chicago is around two miles north of McCormick Place, where KBIS is taking place, so why not start with the Art Institute's most famous painting?

Grant Wood was also an interior designer, and his art was influenced profoundly by his studies of Jan Van Eyck and others, so I think he'd approve of me paying an homage to American Gothic in a modern kitchen.

I can't just design out of thin air, I need a narrative. So I'm busily making one up.

The house in the background of American Gothic is a real house in Eldon, Iowa.

Courtesy Wikimedia

So if that's a real place, I need a believable story. I think I'll make up two guys who are die hard modernists. I see a non-sociopathic Don Draper and a Rodger Sterling, hold the narcissism. Don and Rodge are tired of the hassles of living in Chicago and decide to buy a place in the country. Hello Eldon, IA.

So now I have clients and a house. I'm half way there. How could the interior of a house like that be reinterpreted through a Modernist lens? to be truthful, a lot of what's driving this story is the painting of course but shortly after I had that idea, I came across this faucet.

It's the Bali from Graff Faucets. The Bali is a series of faucets that reinterpret a water pump. I'm telling you, it's the faucet that's going into the house in Eldon. Don and Rodge already approved it in fact.

Here's their master bath.

This is fun! But it's not helping me with this kitchen project. Mercifully, SketchUp's 3D Warehouse gives me access to all manner of modern lighting, furniture, plumbing, appliances and anything else I'll need. So now it becomes a matter of what kinds of things would go into this kitchen in Eldon? Is an apron front sink too easy? How about it I modern it up like this Kohler Verity?

I'm pretty fond of Brizo's Venuto, so I think that's what'll go in the kitchen regardless of the sink.

Since it's one of my designs, it'll have a big kitchen table in it. Probably the Bungalow by Thos. Moser.

I like that table paired with Moser's Edo chair.

Now comes the hard part though. What kind of appliances are they going to get? What's going on the counters? How do I use Ingo Maurer lighting effectively?

What do you guys think? If you were to modern up the interior, specifically the kitchen, of Grant Wood's American Gothic house in Eldon Iowa, what would you use?