Reference Page: August 2006

Pairing Food and Design
During busy weeks at the Metropolis office, life for many of us consists of just two basic necessities: design and food. So we couldn’t be more thrilled to cover a company like the Grateful Palate, www.gratefulpalate.com, which offers a delectable combination of the two. The Bacon of the Month Club (click on the insignia) seems like a bona fide cult for pork lovers—you get an “artisan bacon” and a porcine comic strip each month, as well as your very own BOM membership card when you join. Click on “Artisan Gifts” to peruse an impressive display of crafts and other miscellany, though be warned—the pig-themed T-shirts (“SOW” and “BOAR”) may not win you style points at social gatherings. The company’s new wine-dedicated site is www.gratefulpalateimports.com, though we understand that it won’t go live until later this fall.

Future Perfect
The Vitra Design Museum’s cheerfully colored Web site, www.design-museum.de, has more about Open House: Intelligent Living by Design; click on “Traveling Exhibitions,” then “Exhibitions in Preparation” for information that is continually updated as showings are scheduled for additional cities. Check out www.zollverein.de and go to “Pictures of Zollverein” to see photo stills and even take a virtual tour of the impressive historical landmark where the exhibit will be held. At Entry 2006, www.entry-2006.com, you can download a brochure (select “Entry Press”) for the schedule of workshops and presentations. If all this smart design for good causes is too relevant or exciting, take a look at the Microsoft Home, which curator Jochen Eisenbrand identified as his anti-inspiration. A narrative video at www.microsoft.com/uk/mhome gives clues as to how the operating-system monopoly is using new technology to solve perhaps the most distressing contemporary challenges: how to look in the mirror and read the news simultaneously, how to record a soccer match, and how to take a really, really boring day off.

Writing It Down
Thank Christian Acker for recognizing the importance of preserving the typography of a frequently painted-over art form. His Web site, www.handselecta.com, offers a thorough explanation of his Handselecta graffiti type foundry project, as well as pictures and examples of various artists’ work (click on “Fonts”). If you need a more comprehensive history of graffiti art before you embark, then pick up Nicholas Ganz’s well-received Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents (Abrams, 2004), which includes more than two thousand color pictures alongside interviews with several artists. To help save graffiti from those who would destroy it, visit SAW, www.streetartworkers.org, a group dedicated to using street art to inspire social change.

Behind the Bars
How can we mold the inmates of today into the citizens of tomorrow? Will Alsop, www.alsoparchitects.com, believes that restructuring the system—beginning with the buildings that house lawbreakers—might help. Adding more education programs and smaller cell blocks, and allowing the prisoners to do their business behind closed doors—or at least a wall—all seem like reasonable ideas. But keys to their cells? How about a welcome mat and some fresh-cut flowers along with the books, laundry service, and free meals? A “creative prison” sounds like a marvelously utopian idea, but we’re not sure that doing wrong by society merits such privileges. The project, thought up by the British organization Rideout, was just meant to be conceptual and get people talking, however—and it did that, all right. Go to www.rideout.org.uk to see what all the hubbub’s about, or check out the Prison Design Boycott Campaign, www.adpsr.org/prisons/crisis.htm, to read up on more theories of prison design and social responsibility. The Centre for Creative Communities, www.creativecommunities.org.uk, addresses one of the possible roots of the problem, arguing that creative freedom is vital to sustainable community development; see its links page for loads of relevant information.

Family Comes First
If you’re dying to know more about one of the more elusive members of the Harvard Five, then get yourself to a bookstore in October and purchase Gordon Bruce’s comprehensive monograph on Eliot Noyes, from Phaidon. It will set you back 75 bucks, but considering that it’s the first publication ever dedicated to Noyes—full of previously unseen drawings, letters, and interviews with his friends and family—it should be well worth the price. As long as you’re meandering in the architecture aisle, you can also leaf through William D. Earls’s The Harvard Five in New Canaan (Norton, 2006), which focuses on the group’s midcentury homes. Or if merely reading about the New Canaan houses isn’t cutting it, then you might consider a road trip. The Web site of the New Canaan Historical Society, www.nchistory.org, gives no indication of anything in the town built before 1878, but executive director and Modern preservationist Janet Lindstrom should at least be able to help with directions. And to sign up for advocacy efforts or download documents related to the other New Canaan landmark in this issue, try the Friends of the Gores Pavilion: www.fotgp.com. Docomomo is the premier source for information about Modern conservation; go to www.docomomo.com, where you can learn how to join a local chapter.

Reviving the Plan
So you’re not really a contender to bid on the Cohen House? You might try nabbing a lounge chair or a drawing instead, made available for public consumption through the Paul Rudolph Foundation, www.paulrudolph.org, where you can also volunteer to help with its archiving work. Gomod, www.gomod.com, is a reliable resource on the consumer-oriented side of the Modern spectrum; to locate a Modern home to suit your price range, visit Sell Modern, www.sellmodern.com, which offers detailed specs and photos of homes for sale all across the country. A recent search yielded a million-dollar beauty in such “flyover” country as Boise, Idaho. Martie Lieberman might be able to find you a midcentury home in the greater Sarasota region through www.modernsarasota.com. She also offers free architectural tours of the area. Does your realtor do that?

Prime Time
Oops, were we drooling? Word to the wise: don’t peruse www.qualitymeatsnyc.com at work. You might stumble on tempting pictures of steaks and other unidentifiable, yet thrilling, slabs of meat. Vegetarians, on the other hand, can guiltlessly follow the “About” and “Photo Gallery” links for equally enticing shots of the restaurant’s design and decor. In addition to AvroKO’s restaurant work, you can learn about their smart.space residential projects at www.avroko.com, or go directly to www.smartspaceny.com for details about the Greenwich Vil-lage apartments customized specifically for city living, including desks that fold out from walls. It’s also worth clicking on the AvroKO “Company” link to see the gallery of alluring staff photos—even the dog is attractive.

Jack’s Mixed Bag
The concept of a fictive character bearing the surname of a real person is always a bit disconcerting. Who does this Jack Spade think he is? Is he merely a thinly veiled disguise for creator Andy Spade? Does he get along with Andy’s wife, the prim and proper Kate, www.katespade.com? Is he the man every other man wants to be? The pictures of guys posing with large phallic rockets on www.jackspade.com (click on “Product”) might suggest the latter. But whoever Jack may be, he certainly does have a distinctive style; you can look at the store’s non-rocket-related products by clicking on the helpfully lettered sidebar. Or delve further into the mystery man’s unconscious by clicking on “Art”; a random display of signature Jack Spade bric-a-brac appears, and a tap on the objects forwards you to a seemingly random outside link. How does a bikini relate to the launch of a Navy cargo ship, you ask? That, friends, is the art.