Back Forty

I’m not going to beat around the bush about the fact that the holiday season is upon us. And I’m sure your inbox is already full of gift guides and emails from brands you forgot you even signed up for. But if you’re like me and enjoy giving gifts to those important to you, let me suggest a few places to shop for books, objects, more objects, and sustainable goods. Or stay a night in the Home Alone house. Just please promise to not waste money on a $150K Tiffany Basquiat advent calendar or this indoor stationary bike for kids. K thanks.

Before I get into it, I’d like to welcome the new readers who have signed up in the past couple of weeks and thank those who sent links in. Eshan, Jody, Hadi, Willa, Daniel, and Libbi, you are all awesome. Now on to our regularly scheduled program.

Over 40 designers, artists, and other creatives share their favorite everyday objects

This thirty-minute art film from 1988 by a Swiss artist duo features a series of chain reactions involving ordinary objects à la Rube Goldberg - (I loved this as a kid)

A 13-year-old and her metal detector find a treasure trove of Bronze Age artifacts in the English countryside

A U.K. man stumbles upon 1,700-year-old Roman villa on his father's farm

A mosaic from Caligula’s ‘Pleasure Boat’ spent 45 years as a coffee table in NYC

New York billionaire surrenders $70M worth of stolen ancient art

More than 20 years after an Ohio museum forced a native group to repurchase its own artifacts, it has repaid the tribe

A coalition of artists promote indigenous and environmental struggles through open access art

Maker of totem poles allegedly faked Native American heritage

What do we do with the work of immoral artists?

A sculptor is suing Jeff Koons for using his work without permission

Banksy pledges $13.3M to help turn prison into art center

More than 30 years later, a new clue in the Gardner Museum art heist surfaces

Experts authenticate Lucian Freud painting previously denied by the artist

Recently discovered paintings by Forrest Bess are currently on display in Montauk

Video claims to show Picasso painting being found at a Goodwill

How trailblazing Marisol paved the way for Andy Warhol

A profile of legendary NYC art dealer, Leo Castelli

How to start an art collection

10-year-old painter sells out at Art Miami

Bob Dylan: Retrospectrum is the most-expansive survey of the musician’s visual art ever - (Did anyone know he even made art?)

Sketches and designs of Isamu Noguchi are now on view at Barbican Center in London

Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House is officially renamed the Edith Farnsworth House

Pierre Jeanneret’s iconic 1950s chair now 3D-printed in plastic in Klein’s blue

Midcentury modernism’s uncomfortable history

What will art look like in the metaverse?

As we live more fully online and in the cloud, the digital world is merging with our physical reality

The Age of Creativity

How to meme a painting

Anonymous artist sells 250,000 NFTs for $91.8M

A virtual mega yacht just sold for almost $650K

New study on NFTs deflates their democratic potential and determines 75% of them sell for an average of $15

This digital designer’s creations push viewers beyond the limits of reality

These minimalist animal sculptures form children's playground equipment

Newly built kindergarten in Japan allows children to see, touch, and feel while learning their local history and culture

Ten kindergarten interiors that use color to create a playful environment

Ten best architecture projects designed for kids

Neglected underpass in Prague reinvented as a skate park

Learning from Copenhagen's urban architecture and public spaces

A floating city is set to be built in South Korea

Plants and animals have started living on The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Why does utopian architecture suck?

Why colonizing Mars is a ridiculous way to help humanity

The architecture of prisons is everywhere we look

A brutalist bus station in England wins an award, while a brutalist bank in San Jose gets bulldozed

The controversial revitalization of Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., has been approved

Where are the architectural masterpieces?

Architects agree: the buildings around the High Line are terrible

An architect discusses her relationship between nature and architecture

Nicole Wermers, Croissants & Architecture

A compact home on an Iranian mountainside that promotes sustainability and takes advantage of the surrounding nature

A breathtaking coastal home on the Tasmanian shoreline

A Frank Israel-designed post modern beach house in Malibu asks $9M

A refurbished midcentury home in Beverly Hills

A musician’s midcentury home Los Angeles

A duplex with original Charlotte Perriand kitchen in Le Corbusier’s UNESCO-listed Marseille development is for sale

A sensitively and sustainably remodeled 1960s home in Australia

A series of interlocking spaces embedded with cross-functionality on the Victorian coast

Prefabricated modular units are inserted into timber frames in Mexico

An asymmetrical, sustainable home rises in Belgium after a devastating fire

Hong Kong home of designer is eclectic, elegant, and designed to celebrate connection with nature

A designer’s calming, curvaceous home in London

A compact Melbourne apartment that uses subtle and tactile materiality to create tranquility

A geometric apartment in Spain

A compact apartment in Taipei turned into a flexible and functional living space

A peaceful Brooklyn townhouse

Two duplexes are carved out of a narrow Carroll Gardens brownstone

This Brooklyn townhouse is a serene take on a classic brownstone

A 1920s row house gets an Art Deco-inspired update in Queens

A sense of old California is evoked in an updated 1907 arts & crafts-style home in Los Angeles

Boulders and pine trees surround a low-slung home in California's Palm Desert

Inside a historic home in Marfa

A Japanese-inspired home transformation in Australia

An artist’s eclectic 100-year-old Australian cottage

A rustic and bohemian apartment in a 400-year-old stone townhouse in Wales

An old agricultural building converted into a family house and studio in Berlin

Old metal workshop is converted into boutique residential development

Chicago members club for women feels more like a snug home office than a shared workspace

In London, a 1970s-inspired workspace and social hub opens

Mapping the rise and fall of one of the most prominent artists’ communities in Brooklyn

In the heart of Manhattan, two designers have set up an ephemeral artistic project

Artist fills lifestyle store in Los Angeles with colorful surrealist details

An architect is remaking Santa Barbara, one outrageously fun house at a time

Former 1940s motel is transformed into bungalow-style boutique hotel in Southern California

An artist communes with nature on Japan’s Pacific coast in 200-year-old house

IKEA Japan launches 107 sq. ft. micro apartments in Tokyo that cost less than $1 a month

Shoppers and staff at an IKEA in Denmark spend the night in the showroom after getting snowed in

Lastly, portraits of croissants next to sheets of sandpaper (seen above)

That’ll do it for this week since this has already gotten quite long. I’m grateful for you being here. As always, I can be reached at murphy@therealmurphy.com if you have anything you’d like me to see. And please share this post with someone you like. Take care.

Thomas