U Street NW has been honored as one of the American Planning Association’s Great Places In America: Streets for 2011. On its website, APA wrote, “In 2009 when president-elect Barack Obama ordered a chili half-smoke at the famous Ben's Chili Bowl along U Street N.W., crowds flocked to the legendary eatery and the street it has anchored since 1958. U Street has gone through difficult times, particularly the lingering aftermath of devastating riots following the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today the street is pulsing again with the music, businesses and life that, in the early 1900s, distinguished it as the main street of Washington's ‘city within a city.’”
For more information, please visit http://planning.org/greatplaces/streets/2011/
Image courtesy Ben’s Chili Bowl. Info courtesy American Planning Association.
Explore the richness of the arts of Africa through this fall’s multi-faceted series of programs at The Textile Museum. Based around the exhibition Weaving Abstraction: Kuba Textiles and the Woven Art of Central Africa, which showcases the rich tradition of raffia weaving and embroidery from the region, each program opens a window into broader cultural understanding. See textiles in motion during a dance performance by KanKouran, glimpse into the future of African design, or experience the flavors of Central African cuisine. After each event, enjoy light refreshments and an opportunity to visit this striking exhibition.
For more information, please visit www.textilemuseum.org .
Image and info courtesy The Textile Museum.
You’ve got great ideas for designing a furnishings collection – so where do you start? Before you put pen to paper, learn the practical, legal and aesthetic factors that go into creating a branded collection. A panel of design experts including designers Jamie Drake and David Herchik, licensing expert Kate Verner and Jobi Blachy, President of Edward Ferrell + Lewis Mittman, will share their expertise and answer your questions.
By the way, I’ll be moderating this panel – how lucky am I?!
Please attend “The Dos and Don’ts of Designing Your Own Line” on Tuesday, October 18 (today!), at 11:00 – and afterward, please visit EF+LM’s new showroom at the Washington Design Center!
Image courtesy EF+LM.
Judge… AND jury! Recently Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer was appointed to the jury that awards the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s greatest honor. The appointment speaks both to Justice Breyer’s professional judicial experience and his personal love of architecture. He will join such notable names as Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid for a three-year term.
According to the New York Times, “Justice Breyer said he hopes to advocate for high-quality design in government buildings. ‘The point of all these projects is to say to people – through the architecture of the building and the construction of the building and the use of the building – that the government is you,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a wall of separation. It’s very important to break the idea of the wall down because otherwise people think this is a foreign entity. But this is a democracy, and the government is the community. The wonderful thing about a building is, it can’t do that by itself, but it can help. Architecture can help.”
Image courtesy The New York Times.
We’re heading south this week for a special visit to Washington, DC for the Business of Design Lecture Series. In honor of our road trip, we’ll take a look at some of the more recent developments on the Washington design scene.
“Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments and shops that constitute one’s first universe.” – Henry Anatole Grunwald
Embassy Row lies along Massachusetts Avenue NW from Thomas Circle to Ward Circle, and the majority of embassies are found between Scott Circle and Wisconsin Avenue. Considered Washington’s premier residential address in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Massachusetts Avenue became known for its numerous mansions housing the city’s social and political elites. Though many of the original owners lost their homes in the Great Depression or moved on to more fashionable addresses after Massachusetts Avenue lost its cache, the area reemerged as a center of diplomatic activity following World War II.
Weekly walking tours of Embassy Row are offered through www.washingtonwalks.com and more info is available on their web site.
Image courtesy Embassy of Indonesia. Info courtesy Wikipedia and Washington Walks.
Random Harvest is hosting a sale at its pop-up shop this weekend! Stop by 3144 Dumbarton Street in Georgetown and enjoy 30-70 percent off upholstery, furniture and accessories. For more information, please visit randomharvesthome.com.
Image and info courtesy Random Harvest.
The National Building Museum is made of more than 15,000,000 bricks. Adam Reed Tucker may have used that many in his unbelievable exhibit, “LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition,” which includes models of 15 buildings from around the world made entirely of LEGO bricks. One of only 11 LEGO Certified Professionals in the world, Adam uses his background in architecture to create large-scale models of some of the world’s most famous structures including the Empire State Building, the St. Louis Gateway Arch and Fallingwater.
After viewing the exhibit, try your hand at LEGO architecture and create a building for the National Building Museum’s LEGO community!
“LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition” will run through September 3 at the National Building Museum in Washington. For more information, please visit www.nbm.org .
Image and info courtesy the National Building Museum.
“Home is about individual lifestyle. Our work integrates an exacting vocabulary – responsive to both client and venue. Our practice is sensitive to lifestyle, architecture and setting; recognizing that these must be thoughtfully considered to create living environments. Design longevity is our hallmark; produced by honoring classic elements of the past and present.” – Darryl Carter
Image and info courtesy elledecor.com. To purchase “The New Traditional” by Darryl Carter, please visit amazon.com.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there/They have to take you in. – Robert Frost
Quite possibly the prettiest street in Washington runs just three blocks from 27th Street NW to 30th Street NW. Olive Street is a narrow, tree-lined row of Federal style town homes, most no higher than two stories, and one former schoolhouse that has been converted to residences. The street abuts Rose Park at one end and a lovely residential block of 30th Street NW at the other, making it a picture-perfect sliver of Georgetown’s East Village. And few streets can boast better connections to the culinary world: both Julia Child and Ina Garten lived on Olive Street NW!
Image courtesy washingtondchotelsandtravel.blogspot.com.
Many cultures traditionally associate the color green with nature and its attributes, including life, fertility and rebirth. In recent years, green has become the symbolic color of environmentalism. This exhibition celebrates green both as a color and a cause, exploring the techniques people have devised to create green textiles, the meanings this color has held in cultures across time and place, and the ways that contemporary artists and designers are responding to concerns about the environment.
“Green: The Color and The Cause” will run through September 11 at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.textilemuseum.org .
Image and info courtesy The Textile Museum.
Though it is associated with classic American architecture from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Mass., the Federal style of architecture was actually created in Scotland by the Adams Brothers, who based it on houses and plans in Italy. The style became known as Federal because it gained popularity in the early days of the United States.
Identifying features of Federal style architecture include a fanlight over the door (almost always rounded, rarely squared); Classical/Greek detailing in entryways; Palladian windows; and balustrades. As in Georgian architecture, symmetry and double-hung sash windows are key elements. Some high-style examples of Federal style feature oval and circular rooms – the most famous example of this is the Oval Office.
Image (Evermay, Georgetown) courtesy CurbedDC. Info courtesy Dr. Tom Paradis, Northern Arizona University.
Though he is widely believed to have designed the current layout of Washington, D.C., Pierre Charles L’Enfant really designed only part of the city.
The French-born architect and city planner had developed a strong reputation in New York when George Washington appointed him to design a new capital city on the Potomac in 1791. The plan specified that most streets would be laid out in a grid. To form the grid, some streets would travel east-west, while others would travel north-south. Diagonal avenues later named after the state s of the union crossed the grid. The diagonal avenues intersect with the north-south and east-west streets at circles and rectangular plazas that would later honor notable Americans and provide open space. L’Enfant also included plans for a “grand avenue” to run through the city, an idea that would later become the National Mall, and a long, narrower avenue (now Pennsylvania Avenue) that would connect the Congress House with the President’s House.
Through a bit of political scheming, L’Enfant’s plans were co-opted by others and altered, and L’Enfant received only a nominal sum for his work. Though he fell into disgrace and died almost penniless, years after his death the Capital city came to embrace L’Enfant’s contributions to its unique cityscape and urban layout.
Image and info courtesy Wikipedia.
We’re celebrating Design City this week! In honor of a trip home this weekend, we’ll take a look at a few of the Ws that make Washington a design destination.
