Seventeen Year Cicada
Random title I know but I’m trying really hard to keep with the naming format and since billions of cicadas will be emerging this spring after being dormant for seventeen years I feel it works
Just as a swarm of insects are about to descend on our parks, it seems like the well-loved animal sculptures found in NYC parks are in danger of vanishing hot on the heels of the 60-year old concrete horses that were destroyed last week (thanks Lev)
The Ghent Altarpiece, which has been stolen a dozen times, is now protected in a $35M bulletproof display
Spanish police have seized forged paintings attributed to El Greco, Goya, and Modigliani after a dealer tried to sell them for $14.7M
Explore the Louvre’s entire collection of 480,000 artworks in a new digital database
LACMA is set to reopen this week amidst a year of construction, COVID lockdown and harsh criticism
Meanwhile Frank Gehry’s transformation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art will be unveiled this May
Inside Frank Gehry's overhaul of Garden of Allah, L.A.’s most infamous corner
Hudson Yards Vessel to be dismantled and sold as NFT (just kidding)
Charlotte Perriand’s trailblazing interiors are being recreated for a new exhibition in London
A collection of Japanese carpentry tools are now on view at New York’s Japan Society
Tadao Ando's minimalist aesthetic is captured in black and white in new book (thanks Madoka)
An indoor/outdoor stairway penetrates a home in Tokyo
In the suburbs of Athens, a brutalist office is revived
A converted warehouse loft in Brooklyn and another warehouse apartment in Melbourne
A sculptor’s brutalist home integrated into the landscape in Lyon
This concrete home in Portugal links to its environment
A family home in Brisbane inverts traditional space arrangements to maximize landscape views
An Australian home perched above the water
A cliff-hanging mountain retreat in British Columbia shows respect to its stunning surroundings while a Vancouver Island home is at one with the forest
This timber weekend house in the Czech Republic
Brother and sister find common ground in their new split-level London duplex
The reworking of an 1872 country cottage
Fabulous 1970s home, untouched since it was built
A 370-square-foot apartment breaks all the small-space rules in NYC’s East Village (thanks Lisa)
A tiny tea room hidden in a NYC apartment, another in Hong Kong inspired by a sunset and one that sits above the water in Ecuador
Over the course of a month in 1930, the Indiana Bell building was rotated 90° while all 600 employees remained inside working and no one felt a thing (thanks Meri)
How retooling traditional construction methods can make good design more accessible
This modular prefabricated cabin can be ordered online and is delivered on the back of a truck (thanks JL)
One of the most ambitious (albeit unsuccessful) attempts at large-scale housing production
Here’s what we can learn from Japanese prefab homes
Frank Lloyd Wright inspires a cozy cabin in Norway
A tree-house-like cabin in upstate NY designed for contemplation, separation and protection
Book an escape to a design-forward reprieve nestled in nature
Here come the hot desks and Zoom rooms. And holograms?
I guess there’s no longer a use for this Chrome extension that makes it look like you’re on a conference call while watching Netflix
Be more realistic about the time you have
How to clear away the clutter
Ten reasons to write a book
The Harvard Graduate School of Design has announced the launch of new book imprint, Harvard Design Press
The new Radical Architecture of the Future book
Bookfeed.io is a simple tool that generates an RSS feed with a list of newly released books from your favorite authors
I just picked up this Keith Haring kids book for my son and he loves it
That reminds me of the new documentary on Martha Cooper, the foremost documenter of graffiti art in New York City
That’ll bring this week’s newsletter to an end. Thanks for reading and I appreciate all of you who sent a message. I’ll be back next week. In the meantime consider sending this to a friend. And if anyone wants to reach me, shoot an email over to capa@bloodandchampagne.com.
Thomas