Wednesday, June 22, 2011

BEAUTY: Interior--Yabu Pushelberg

Design team (and life partners for 31 years!) George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg have designed award-winning restaurants and retail spaces as well as private residences for clients across the continent, but perhaps their most spectacular creation is their own home. Located in a Richard Meier-designed tower on Perry Street in Manhattan, it is 4,000 square feet of organic minimalist sumptuousness. Their spaces are full--or empty, depending on which way you look at things--of strange, unexpected textures and shapes, many of them unfamiliar as furniture or furnishings. Even though the space has a lot of natural materials like wood and warm metals, it has the feeling of some sort of science fiction fantasy interior, as though we are seeing the living space of an alien race who have objects and rooms whose uses we cannot begin to fathom; just look at the biomorphic cast-bronze tripod chair with what appears to be moth wings. The art selection helps that along as well with things like the glass ball deer head by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa.
They even manage to make the thick cement pillars seem part of their grand scheme and vision.


http://www.yabupushelberg.com/

2 comments:

Cameron Fry said...

I was simply doing a little thing I do as I come to the office early in the morning. I enter a few letters into the searchbox of my Google page, looking for some inspiration, an idea, or something different that inspires me. It could be anything, absolutely anything. I saw a name, Yabu Pushelberg.. I thought, " now THAT, THAT is a NAME !!! I clicked, and searched images, gazing at the screen over my tea. Then I saw this chair in the photo. I captured it, zoomed it, and stared for over 5 minutes at this chair.. I said out loud as a staff member was walking by " your alive, arent you ? That thing is actually ALIVE !" A piece of furniture like this is so rare, I believe that in our world today, less than what can be counted on a child's fingers and toes in numbers actually exist in pieces like this one. Our minds are so conditioned in this induced dream we live in to accept things that "arent" as though they actually "are" This chair simply "is". Not in a contrived manner, but more in a manner where some form of perfection is created by chaos. Its the feet that give it charachter, and finish the image. It inspires music, stories, and imagination. It is a time machine, and a place I could sit that would unlock possilities and truth. I have NEVER IN MY LIFE, EVER seen anything like this !!! Someone has to write a story about this chair, and bring it completely to life. It looks like some sort of creature, sitting there, able to change on its masters command into something magical.

Jeff said...

Cameron,

Thanks so much for your marvelous, astute comments and observations! You PERFECTLY described that chair! YOU should write the story about it--you have a fantastic angle on it already (and a nice facility with words)! What a wondrous story that could be: a living chair that can change shape. I love it!

I am glad you were so inspired by this post and by the work of Yabu Pushelberg. I always post things hoping that they will inspire or change readers somehow... and it seems this post succeeded in doing that!

Thanks again for the comment and thanks for stopping by my blog. Hope to see you again soon!
Best,
JEF