Rookwood Vase in a space

The Rookwood vase by Rookwood Pottery (designer Lawrence) is shown here in an imagined contemporary residential space. The architectural style of this home is modern with emphasis placed on clean, geometric forms, open spaces, and large windows that being the outside in. The interior furnishings and decorative objects are minimal but carefully selected. It could be inferred that this is the home of someone with considerable economic means and a knowledge and appreciation of the history of modernism. Homes with strong modern features like this are often custom designs that are more expensive than the typical middle class house. The collection of furniture and artifacts ranges in time frame of design but shares a connection to modernism and general design significance. The sofa is a Stickley sofa, an important designer and manufacturer of the American Arts and Crafts movement. The chairs are Le Corbusier LC1 or Basculant chairs, designed in 1928 and currently produced by Cassina. Le Corbusier was a significant architect and designer of the early modernism movement. The vessel that shares the hearth with the Rookwood vase is Canoa, designed by Ludovico Diaz de Santillana and Tobia Scarpa and manufactured by Venini. Venini is an Italian company from the glass blowing island of Murano. It is significant to modernism and similar to Rookwood pottery because of the use of simple modern forms and the practice of inviting designers, architects, and artists from outside the company to produce designs for them. On the wall hang two felt pieces, called Yard, by Italian rug and furniture manufacturer Paola Lenti. The Stickley sofa, Rookwood vase, Venini glass vessel, and Paola Lenti hangings are all pieces that are hand made. The Corbusier chairs are machine made but are born out of a similar focus on being well made. Everything within the space as well as the space itself embody ideas first born out of the Arts and Crafts movement and then continued in modernism such as clean geometric forms, quality of construction, and blurring of the lines between inside and out.

Laura Snoderly

sources:
www.artsmia.org/modernism/Ointro
www.cassinausa.com
www.paolalenti.com
www.venini.com
www.stickley.com