Babette Holland

Designers on Design: best things, concepts, places of 2007-Babette Holland
December 3, 2007

1) New York finally has a Frank Gehry Building.  It's pretty wonderful, and different from what we've come to expect from a Gehry building.  It's in glass and in the evenings the play of colored lights can be mesmerizing, bouncing around the wonderful mountain-like form of the building.  During the day, figures and forms in the building are in shadows, like a shadowplay, partially because of the frosted window and also because of the interior structure. The only problem is where the building is located. It's on West Street, and you can get killed trying to get a good look at the building. There's no "backing up" to see it -- or you're in the middle of mad rushing traffic. So, you have to keep driving past it, and then you feel bad for wasting fuel. Another way to "view it" is to go to the Tiffany website- he's done wonderful vases in porcelain that have a feel for the structure, and they're more affordable than most things at Tiffany. 

2) 7 World Trade Center. Well, it's about time we have something where the Towers were, and it's really a beautiful building, too. By David Childs of SOM, it's opened Greenwich Street to correct the flow downtown. There's nothing (that we know of) hidden in this building to bring it down, and it's beautifully designed. Better looking than what's currently proposed for the ridiculous Freedom Tower, if it ever gets built. It's good to see something accomplished in the area that was truly destroyed, and not the areas the developers want to built in, pretending these were neighborhoods hurt by September 11th. I will miss forever miss the old skyline.

3) One of the most incredible things I saw this year was done by a designer I know, Hilda Haithcock. She designs all the interiors for Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in NC. It was for their new cancer ward. It was for the area where people were getting chemo, and she used Womb Chairs. I cried. The room was peaceful and serene, and if you've ever curled up in a Womb Chair, you know how aptly named it is. I've never had chemo (luckily) but I can only image that she hit the nail on the head. That must be the feeling you want when you're going through something like that. There were chairs for the patient, their family, the colors were so soothing. What an understanding of the human condition. What empathy. You can see it on the Knoll website.

4) This is an incredible floor lamp (see photo, left). It's sculpture and light and elegant and colorful and I need 20 (arranged sculpturally) "Stacking (David Rockwell Collection for Leucos) is a human-scale floor lamp inspired by Japanese lacquered stacking cups. It is comprised of individual cylinders of colored glass stacked to form a radiant decorative column. Stacking is offered in four distinct colorway combinations using multiples of amber, tobacco, white, fume, orange and mirrored glass." How to wrap five more eggs, or how to light your home. Wow. It's on the Interior Design Website, and you can vote for it ( they entered it in the best decorative lamp of the year- it got my vote)

Posted by Babette Holland on December 3, 2007 | Comments (0)