Brian MacKay-Lyons - almost here

It's just over a week until the international member of our Home of the Year jury, Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, arrives in New Zealand to give talks about his remarkable work in Auckland (on February 8) and Wellington (on February 9). Tickets are on sale at Ticketek at the link here.

Brian is a leading proponent of regionalist architecture (the project shown above is in Nova Scotia and was photographed by Greg Richardson), as well as being a sheep farmer and sea kayaker, so his talks promise to be fascinating. Architects get 10 CPD points for attending. Thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for making Brian's visit possible. We look forward to seeing you at these special events.

Travel: Ice Cube at The Eames house

While we're on the subject of the Eames house (as in our previous post), the Eames Foundation has a short web clip of the house, with commentary from Ice Cube. It's worth a look:

Travel: The Eames House, Los Angeles

One of LA's many modernist marvels, the Eames house is remarkable not only for its architectural pedigree (the original scheme for the house was designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, but significantly adapted before construction by Charles and Ray Eames), but because it is redolent of the rich, creative and generous lives of its occupants. The Eames's moved into the house in 1949; they lived there until their deaths (Charles in 1978, Ray exactly 10 years later). Their daughter, Lucia, set in motion the process of making the house a National Historic Landmark.

These days, reservations are required for a visit, but the process is relatively easy (you can opt for a self-guided exterior tour, or pay more for a guided tour of the interior). 

We were staying in Santa Monica, which meant we could walk to the house in about half an hour - a rare luxury in LA, especially as the walk was mostly along Santa Monica beach. The house is set in a grove of eucalyptus trees in Pacific Palisades, although rather than being located in the centre of the property, the Eames pushed it to the edge of the grove to maximise their enjoyment of the open space. There are views of the ocean from the edge of the property. This image shows the entrance to the house, with its Mondrian-inspired colour panels.

Although we had opted for the exterior tour, the glassiness of the house means it is still easy to see inside. At the moment, the contents of the Eames's living room have been temporarily relocated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the LA-side Pacifc Standard Time exhibition. The living room of the house is now set up just as it was when the Eames moved in around Christmas 1949, with colourfully decorated tools suspended from the ceiling by string. An exhibition of photographs in the grove shows the development of the living room's eclectic decor. This photo shows a view back to the house from the lawn.

Outside the living room is a beautiful, Japanese-inspired courtyard.

Belowis another view of the entrance. These are my images, but you can find a greater variety of superior shots, as well as information on how to visit, at the Eames Foundation's site at the link here. It's well worth visiting if you're going to LA, and much easier to do so than you'd expect. While you're there, it's also worth checking out other parts of the Pacific Standard Time exhibition, which involves cultural institutions all over the city. We saw a terrific show downtown at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA which I'll write more about in a later post.  

Travel: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan

Over the break we enjoyed a fleeting visit to the Benesse art site on Naoshima Island in Japan. Having stayed in Takamatsu, we caught a 50 minute ferry to Naoshima, and on arrival rented bikes for getting around the island. Naoshima is home to a number of museums, galleries and outdoor artworks, though the Chichu art museum designed by architect Tadao Ando was a personal highlight. Constructed in 2004, the reinforced concrete museum permanently houses works by Claude Monet, James Turrell and Walter de Maria. Submerged in the hillside, it does not compete with the natural landscape, lying flush with geometric sky-lights visible from an aerial view, as shown below.



Each gallery space is individually crafted around the experience of the art piece, and lit solely with natural light. Here is the gallery housing works by Claude Monet.

The image below shows a gallery featuring the work of Walter de Maria.

In Chichu, Ando has created a work of art in itself that honours the pieces within it. Accentuated by the absence of crowds and peaceful setting, our visit left us with a deep sense of calm.

Our new look

Those of you who haven't picked up our latest issue yet may not know that we've undergone a bit of a redesign, courtesy of the lovely team at Inhouse Design. We've put some of the opening spreads from the features in this issue below as a tease. The first is a story about the artist Andrew Barber, with photography taken at his Auckland studio by Jeremy Toth.

On the western shores of Lake Taupo is this bach, a former dental clinic sensitively adapted by architects Rick Pearson and Briar Green, and photographed by Simon Wilson.

Some people have been asking, what's the difference? Good point, as we have opened stories with two full-page images many times in the past. The difference on these pages is our new fonts, but in the body of the magazine we also have a new five-column grid (the underlying organisational structure for the layout), as well as different treatments of small devices like bylines and picture captions. Not enormous changes, and the intention was for it to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary - so if you haven't noticed, that's OK!

Brian MacKay-Lyons: Tickets on sale now!

The international member of our Home of the Year jury, Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, will visit New Zealand in February to help choose the winner of the Home of the Year award (the award results will be published in our April/May 2012 issue).

He'll be giving talks in Auckland (on February 8) and Wellington (on February 9) when he's here, and tickets are now on sale at the link here. Brian is a leading proponent of regionalist architecture, as well as being a sheep farmer and sea kayaker, so his talks promise to be fascinating (Architects get 10 CPD points for attending.) Thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for making Brian's visit possible.

That's Brian below, and a shot of one of his buildings by Greg Richardson. For more information about Brian and his work, you can visit his website here.

Our new cover

Our new cover features an outdoor room on Great Barrier Island, designed by Lance and Nicola Herbst of Herbst Architects and photographed by Jackie Meiring. We really like it and hope you do too - subscribers should receive their copies today, and the magazine will be on newsstands on Monday December 5.

Our new issue also features a slick black cottage by Fearon Hay Architects on Great Barrier Island, a colourful, 50s-inspired bach on the Kapiti Coast by Parsonson Architects, New Zealand-born architect David Howell's glamorous New York apartment, a former dental clinic reinvented as a bach at Lake Taupo by Rick Pearson and Briar Green, and lots more. The graphic design boffins among you will also be interested to know that this issue features a redesign led by Arch MacDonnell at Inhouse Design. Let us know your thoughts on it...