Schindler Lovell Beach House side table: Delivered!

Last October, a side table from the Lovell Beach House circa 1926 designed by Schindler appeared on Ebay. It was pretty beat up and pretty expensive; however, the photos offered a great glimpse into how Schindler built the thing, so I hmmmm'd to myself  "Hmmmm..... that goofy buddy of mine over yonder at Coulbury Design that made me that Eileen Gray table could easily do this." And so I hired him and his missus to do so. They're busy over there, so I told 'em no rush. But now it is done, and it is gorgeous!

We did do some things differently than the original: we used oak instead of redwood (and wow is it heavy!), and Dan didn't shore it up with steel plates (although I wonder if those bits on the Ebay posting were original to the table). I spec'd it to be clear coated to keep the natural wood tone (Schindler would approve) yet protect the table from drunks. Our only issue is: Where do we put it? I had hoped to place it in the master bedroom, but it turns out that there is too much going on in there for it to look right. We could place it between the guest beds upstairs, but then you can only see two of the six sides (and this is a piece that was designed to be seen from multiple angles). We shall see...

And to Keep Austin Weird, here's the invoice:

"That feller musta ben pretty clever ta cum up wit summin lik dis." I love it! I really hope he bills everyone this way.

Mies the Cat approves.

building a reproduction of Schindler's Lovell Beach House side table

Last October, a curious thing happened: An original (circa 1922) side table from R.M. Schindler's Lovell Beach House appeared on Ebay. It was far too expensive to tempt temptation, not to mention that it looked like it had re-entered the atmosphere and didn't have papers. But the seller included a great collection of photos of the table from different perspectives. "Hmmmm...." I hmmmed, "That looks buildable."

So I called my friends at Coulbury Design about building a reproduction (if you recall, they also built us a stunning reproduction of Eileen Gray's de Stijl table). Here's the Schindler before sealing:

Wow! I really like how they improvised and put a darker piece of wood in the center to bring out that plane. The 1922 original was made of redwood, but we chose oak for ours (better to match the wood in our house). It goes off to the finisher before it comes home. We'll need to find a good place for it.

Austin has a Blu Dot!

Blu Dot is in Austin, right downtown! If you are ready to upgrade from IKEA but don't yet have an Italian import budget, Blu Dot is your kinda place. We have several pieces (a couple chairs, a desk, ottomans, and a side table and magazine holder from an early collaboration they did with Target), and we are pleased with them all.

In other Blu Dot news, while surfing info about that early collaboration with Target, it turns out they still collaborate with Target with a special online line called Too.

austin designer: petrified design

Picked up an impressive new mag the other day called Austin Way that featured an article on an Austin design team I hadn't heard of called Petrified Design. PD makes some nifty mid-century Modern inspired furniture and a lamp. Check 'em out!

marcel breuer's wassily chair

I'm always amazed by how well Modernist furniture designed in the 1920s fits in with our house. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, this furniture was specifically designed for Modern structures at a time when there was no furniture to fit the architecture. Nevertheless, here I stand (and sit?), amazed.

Marcel Breuer in his chair circa 1927. 

"This metal furniture is to be nothing more than a necessary device for modern-day living."

A recent acquisition we made was Marcel Breuer's Model B3 Chair, known popularly these days as the Wassily Chair. Designed in 1925 and 1926 while Breuer was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus (and only 23 years old!), Breuer was inspired by the chrome handlebars of his newly acquired Adler bicycle. His design also echoes neoplasticism, namely Gerrit Rietveld's early de Stijl furniture. It was also the first use of steel tubing in furniture.

1925 Adler (via here). Nice handlebars!

The original chair used black or white canvas for the material and came in a folding and non-folding version. It wasn't until after World War II that the manufacturer introduced leather in addition to canvas. Knoll currently owns the trademark and design, although the patent design is expired and thus available to other manufacturers. The Knoll version retails for (gulp) $2,354 (our unofficial [and more than adequate] version cost substantially less). The name "Wassily" came years later when the chair was re-released and the manufacturer heard a story of how the painter Wassily Kandinsky, at the Bauhaus at the time Breuer designed the chair, liked the chair so much that Breuer had an extra copy of the prototype made for him.

Pleasantly creepy photo by Erich Consemüller of a woman in the B3 club chair wearing a mask by Oskar Schlemmer and a dress in fabric designed by Lis Beyer, 1926.

Original manufactured chair, 1926-1927 at the Vitra Design Museum

Marcel Breuer (1902 to 1981) was a Hungarian architect and early student and instructor at the Bauhaus. He teamed with Walter Gropius at a number of institutions and for a number of projects, complimenting Gropius' lack of drawing skills. Like many of the Bauhausers, Breuer left Nazi Germany in the 1930s. His path took him and Gropius at first to England where they worked for Isokon. While in England, Breuer collaborated with the architect F.R.S. Yorke on Modern houses. When Gropius left England for the United States in 1937 to run the Harvard School of Design, Breuer went with him. Breuer and Gropius went their separate ways in 1941.

Photo of the vintage chair with white canvas from Knoll.

We put the chair in the office, which has a viewscape from the entry and living room along the bookcase. The antique black phone in the rear is from East Germany.

that bench is RAD

Picked up our bench a couple weeks ago and placed it just outside the back door. And it looks fine!

We saw the table version in a back yard on the last AIA tour and thought "Hmmmm.... Wonder if there's a bench."

That table (and this bench) is made by RAD Furniture, a local modern furniture maker. RAD also made the stools that grace our kitchen.

The bench has clean lines and is sturdily powder coated to resist the elements. We chose white to contrast it against the pavers and the gray background and to complement the white parts of the house. That sucker also comes in different sizes: We chose the small. Just big enough to fit the space.

And there you go!

Under construction...

horizontal wooden planes

We also hired the good folks at Coulbury Design to built and install bathroom shelves and the built-in desktop in the upstairs bedroom. As might be expected, we requested hickory to match sills and floors. Dan, who is fixated on not showing screws or attachment hardware (a good fixation for Modern), was able to install with simply the board showing. One design element we requested was to pull the desk top out from the wall a couple inches so any electrical cords could fall down the back. He claims the desk is strong enough to support baby making... 

drowning in blu dot

Blu Dot is from Minnesota. Blu Dot is what IKEA could be if it embraced quality. Blu Dot is the bridge between IKEA and Italian (with quite a price span from here to Italy).

We got Dot.

With a sale going on, we ordered a couple of their flat-packed Real Good Chairs. We also picked up a couple cubic ottomans. And the bride, not happy to see me working on an IKEA flimster, bought me Desk 51 (which reminds me of something Shindler would buy for some reason...).

It's all nice stuff. It's Blu Dot.

We first saw Blu Dot stuff in person at a brick-n-mortar store in Los Angeles. And gee, that lamp sure is nice...

a Modern picnic table

One of the planned elements for the back yard was a recreation (of a recreation...) of an outside table originally designed by Donald Judd (posted here). Here's a photo of the original at Judd's house in Marfa:

He tended to stain his outdoor wood black (which is somewhat masochistic given the blazing Texas sun).

We decided to build ours out of cedar and stain it clear to create a backyard tie-in with the clear-stained wood in the ceiling and eaves of the house. We hired our pal at Coulbury Design to build the table for us. Unlike the original and the Shark Pit knock-off, Dan decided to not use any metal at all, instead using wooden dowels:

Which is pretty cool and makes the piece even more minimal than it already is.

The entire table weighs a freakin' ton, so he and his bride brought it over in pieces and then doweled it all together.

A few hours later, we had a table!

There are still a few glitches to work out with the bench seats (may need more dowels), but all in all a gorgeous, sculptural table. It was a big hit at the green chile roasting and peeling party we had the next day.