PaperCity Magazine

September 2012 - Houston

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DECORATION THE ROW HOUSE Reinvented PARDON JENNY ANTILL My French Poul Henningsen, manufactured by Louis Poulsen & Company, PH ���Artichoke��� Lamp, 1958, copper, steel and enameled metal, the MFAH, museum purchase with funds provided by the Design Council, 2000 Arrestingly UNDERSTATED Appreciating Nordic design requires an awareness of subtle nuance. Explore the ���ne materials and clean lines of the aesthetic at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston���s ongoing exhibition ���Scandinavian Design��� ��� a comprehensive overview of 20th-century design from Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway. Curator Cindi Strauss combines furniture, metalwork, glass, ceramics and lighting from the likes of Orrefors, Georg Jensen, Alvar Aalto, Verner Panton and Poul Henningsen to great effect, offering the viewer a thorough understanding of the school���s personal yet utilitarian style. The MFAH started collecting the genre in 1953, with the purchase of Finnish glass. See what treasures they���ve amassed since. Through January 27, 2013, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; mfah.org. Seth Vaughan Laurence Anderson Row on 25th Shaker-like row houses Laurence Anderson is as charmingly French as the Gallic shrug. She was 34 years on Ferndale in a charming, albeit petite antiquit�� named Made in France; now she has packed up her tapestries, hotel silver, old letters and books, and the odd balcony or chimneypiece and moved lock stock and baril to Kirby and Westheimer ��� and treasures abound. ���I go to France four times per year and pick everything myself,��� she assures us. A large container has just arrived, and in its depths are 10 tables, each more worn and warm than the last, and a screen from a castle in Wales that spans three centuries, with 17th-century Aubusson tapestries, 18th-century carved bottom panels and a 19th-century mirror in the center panel ��� ���I���ve never seen anything like it!��� she says. There���s also a 1930s ��� 1940s portrait of a lady that���s to die, and other remains and fragments from castles and strongholds. 2565 Kirby Drive, 713.529.7949. Holly Moore HEMPEL > PEEL Omer Arbel���s Bocci 14 Series Lighting, 2005, at Hempel Design JACK THOMPSON D eveloper Holden Shannon and designers Matt and Tina Ford of Shade House Development have initiated an ambitious plan to tweak what has become part of the American iconography: the row house. They���ve taken a little more than an acre of land in the Houston Heights and are constructing nine pristine white row houses, almost Shaker in their simplicity, in a rental development dubbed Row on 25th. Shannon, a Rice University grad with a business interest in the Row, says, ���The idea here was taken partially from the white Minnesota farmhouses where I live part of the year, with their vast green corn���elds ��� as well as the town of Marfa with its quietness and visual restraint.��� Matt Ford has created a subtle gradation of white exterior-paint hues, orchestrating a darker contrast as each structure recedes into the space. ���We also cantilevered the homes so they ���oat eight inches off the ground and placed them to the back of the lot, planting a native Muhly grass ���eld in front to set off the white forms,��� he says. Still in the planning stages is a common area with tables, plus benches by metal artist George Sacaris. Interior designer Barbara Hill has been enlisted to stage the 1,900-square-foot dwellings ��� which rent for $2,850 a month ��� with apropos art and furnishings. Never losing sight of the upscale amenities required in the competitive real estate rental market, the team has installed Sub-Zero refrigerators and professional-grade appliances in the kitchens, which are clad with gray limestone (a material used in the master baths, too) from counter backsplash to ceiling. Ford used ash and reclaimed longleaf pine for ���ooring, stainless-steel on kitchen cabinetry and slab windows (save for the west wing, where windows have been omitted), enabling light to gently cascade through the courtyard and into the house. A modernist���s mecca, the walls are smooth and free of door and window trim. Concerned with living greener? You can take solace in the fact that Ford ��� whose eco-minded work has been featured in Dwell magazine ��� has utilized Zero-VOC ���oor and cabinet ���nishes, used reclaimed material for the fencing and installed re���ective metal roo���ng and tank-less water heaters. Row on 25th is at 226 W. 25th Street. Information shadehousedev.com. Laurann Claridge Making a POINT Here���s proof that two heads are better than one. You see, John Schaeffer of Point 2 Point specializes in moving and storage; Glen Rodkey of Crowded House Services is known in interior design circles as the man to call when you need your Louis or your Duncans moved. (Crowded House has, for years, been PaperCity���s of���cial mover for ���ne furnishings.) These two men recently put their heads ��� and their Houston-based businesses ��� together and made a merger, putting their operations under one roof at the edge of the Heights. When it���s time for your next move, or if you just need expert help picking up that new Empire dining table, call the newly minted Point2Point Crowded House to handle the relocation, delivery or storage. 303 Garden Oaks Blvd., 713.861.4224; p2pandch.com. Laurann Claridge Peel Gallery, a pioneer in melding cutting-edge art and innovative design, is relocating and rebranding. Watch for the big reveal at the Houston Art Fair 2012 (September 13-16), where Peel metamorphoses into Hempel Design, monikered after owner/founder/astute curator Steven Hempel. Check out Hempel���s site-speci���c installation for HFAF as he taps his rising star, the Mexico City-born, Dallas-based, internationally exhibited Gabriel Dawe for one of the sculptor���s signature chromatic spaces woven from dramatically crisscrossing ���oor-toceiling ���laments of yarn. Reliant Center may never be the same. After the Fair, Hempel Design moves to new digs. Shuttering his 4411 Montrose space last month, he���s still searching for an inside-the-loop locale while emphasizing a renewed focus on lighting, including stocking avant-gardists such as Canadian lighting designer Omer Arbel (of the highly collectible, mouthblown Bocci Series pendants, from $600). stevehempel@ gmail.com (new Web site coming). Catherine D. Anspon

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