Glass House Modernism Circa 1883

Phillip Johnson's Glass House (1949)

Having wasted a little too much time yesterday with the Making of America periodical database, I couldn't stop thinking about the article about the future of lumber substitutes from an 1883 issue of The Manufacturer and Builder. Amongst the suggested materials was a reference to glass veneers that would be strong enough to replace wood and have an appearance of real ornamental lumber that would fool the experts.

Glass as Lumber Substitute (1883)

As absurd as glass lumber sounds, consider for a moment petrified wood. When mineral-rich water runs through a piece of wood, the natural cellulose gives way to decomposition as the material is replaced by mineral deposits. Instead of a chunk of wood, you are left with a fossil of stone. Perhaps the silica of glass could be constructed in a petrified wood-like order and fired to create glass lumber.

Clearly, I am out of my depth. If anybody knows about these 19th century glass veneers for construction, please let us know.

Phillip Johnson Glass House
Petrified Wood
Previously, Making of America archive

Hugo França Furniture Show

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Dumbo Octopus

The dumbo octopus is the absolutely best reason I have ever seen to travel 500m below the surface of the ocean. This little charmer is simply begging to be recreated in felt with googly eyes and a pipe cleaner snout.

From Claire Nouvian's The Deep
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Japanese Cantaloupe

Whether it is Fortnum and Mason (UK), Marshall Fields (Chicago) or Seibu (Tokyo), my favorite thing about old school department stores are the food cellars. I was recently thinking about how the metrics for perfection evolve over time. When you are working at the absolute zenith, the most subtle variations are amplified to separate the perfect from the merely great. The gift cantaloupe standards of the Tokyo department stores have evolved to define quintessentially perfect cantaloupe as a melon with vine tendrils reaching 6 inches from the stem.

A little Googling found Brad Templeton's site, but if anybody else has photos of extreme Japanese gift fruit, please email us! Brad mentions $125 melons, but I know I saw showpiece $600 cantaloupes when I was in Tokyo.

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Detroit Agate

While at Maker Faire, Lenore showed me her "Detroit agate." A family heirloom, this rock tumbled artifact is not actually a stone but a chunk of sedimentary paint chipped from the inside of an auto paint spray booth.

Harry Whittier Frees

John says:

The things we do to animals, real or only depicted. I can't look at Mainzer dressed cats without thinking of Harry Whittier Frees.

There is a seemingly universal desire to see animals dressed and going about the business of their inferiors - people. From the first time you scoop the poop, the dog knows the battle has been won.

Cornell Lab for Orinthology Poster by Charlie Harper

The Cornell Lab has a nice little interview with Charlie Harper about the creation of the epic We Think the World of Birds poster.

I start with a sketch. For the Lab's painting, I cut out a lot of bird shapes and pushed them around until I was sure they were where I wanted them to be. This let me try different combinations and different compositions very easily, and then, when I finally decided where to put them, I stuck them down with rubber cement. That gave me the basis for the painting. The problem is that I kept wanting to make changes and every time I did that it added another hour or two to the process. I tried so hard to make this painting the best thing I've ever done, which is a measure of how important it is to me.

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Mary and Russel Wright's "Guide to Easier Living"

Russel and Mary Wright's low key modernist manifesto, Guide to Easier Living (1950), is back in print but appears to be available exclusively from the Russel Wright Center. Just as well, the website for Russel and Mary's home and studio is well worth a visit.


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Monumental Tree Trunk

From Barbara Israel Garden Antiques:

A Spanish Sweet Chestnut tree root from the reign of William and Mary, ca. 1700, from the southeast of England, near Wells. Diameter of root base 11 ft., estimated weight, 5 tons.

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Phil Ross: Triple Now Power

From philross.org:

In the Museum of Natural History in NYC there is an eight-foot wide cross section of a Sequoia sempervirens, its polished surface engraved with important dates in human history at corresponding growth rings. It is both awesome and troubling to stand before this several thousand-year-old tree: awesome to see epic time in a physical manifestation, troubling to think about the need for this type of graffiti in the first place. My desire in making Triple-Now-Power is to suggest a view of time that is more complex than a progressive chronology.

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Phil Ross previously considered on my other website, Hooptyrides - Link