Vladimir Kagan's Blog

Warren Buffett and Me

An un-authorized comparison between Warren Buffet and Me

I have never met Mr. Buffett in person, but in a recent Time Magazine, cover story on this unique person, he and I seem to have a few things in common.

Mr. Buffett believes in making money – as do I. (He’s just a little better at it.)

He believes in fairness – that has always been my credo.

He believes in the ability of the government to make people’s lives better – I think that is a reasonable expectation.

But most of all, he believes in luck – and this is where both of us are blessed!

However, there are a few statistical fine points where our numbers don’t quite sync. Mr. Buffett is the third richest man in the world, I’m afraid that I am somewhere down in the 35 billionth percentile.

Mr. Buffet admits to being a member of the 1% Club…. And proud of it.

I am pleased to have attained the exalted 50% level. Where your glass is either half full (optimist) or half empty (pessimist).

Mr. Buffett prides himself on having had the good luck to be born: “male in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska.”

I had the bad luck to be born in 1927 into Nazi Germany, but had the good luck to be kicked out, ten years later, due to Hitler’s anti-Semitic paranoia. This brought me to the shores of New York as a scrawny refugee boy.

Mr. Buffet’s beginnings were modest and simple, as were mine. We both went to public school. None- the-less, both of us got a decent education.

He sold chewing gum, Coca Cola and magazines door to door - I started my working career cleaning shoes at three cents a pair, (undercutting the competition by two cents.) I sold the Saturday Evening Post every week at the entrance to the subway. It did not grow into a huge business, but bought me candies at the local grocery store... Mr. Buffet worked in his Grandfather’s grocery store; I worked in my father’s cabinet shop after school and except for a few part-time jobs, (including a stint on Broadway as an extra in an operetta) I have always been self-employed: We were both entrepreneurs!

In 1983, Mr. Buffet bought the Nebraska Furniture Mart, America’s largest Home furnishing store run by the legendary Mrs. B (Rose Blumkin), who ran it with an iron fist into her 103^rd birthday. This puts us both in the furniture business!

Mr. Buffett gets by on a salary of $100,000 per year, so do I. He drives an old 2008 Cadillac I drive a ’22 Model T. He flies around in his corporate Jet; I occasionally manage to bum a ride in a friend’s.

He went on to Columbia Business School and learned all the tricks of the trade on how to make money.

I went to Colombia School of Architecture, (albeit in their night-extension courses) and learned about styles and construction.

This is where our lives have taken divergent turns. Mr. Buffett acquired corporate entities and sagaciously built them in to huge successes. (I should have gone to Columbia Business School instead of Architecture.) Consequently, Mr. Buffett has attained unbelievable wealth. He has acquired company after company; I have gained piles of trophies and awards, plus a few honorary doctorates, though wealth has steadfastly eluded me. Good luck has paved both our ladders of success.

In our old age, Mr. Buffett now owns a railroad (I’ve always been a railroad buff but own only a few miniature models). Mr. Buffet is generously giving away 99% of his wealth to charity; I am giving roughly 35% of my earnings annually to the government (albiet reluctantly) to fight wars on poverty, insurgents, and bailing out nasty bankers.

We both have been blessed with loyal, clever wives, who have supported us spiritually all our lives. And now we are now both widowed (though Mr. Buffett has found happiness in a new marriage) I am still living in the afterglow of my departed wife, Erica.

The undeniable comparison: Today we are both contented elderly gentlemen, reaping the pleasures of a fulfilled life and understanding that many of the best things in life are free.

Posted at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/08/2012

Paris in the Winter

It’s not exactly April in Paris

But Paris is Paris at any time of the year

Even without a weather forecast, you know that Paris in January, you can expect rain, snow and cold… but would I turn down a visit to Paris – never! Especially, if it includes a major exhibit of my work.

THE KAGAN NEW YORK COLLECTION, first introduced in Milan at the Salone De Mobile in 2000 and subsequently shown with major exhibits in Cologne at the Köln Möbel Messe and Abitare il Tempo in Verona, the collection has achieved world-wide recognition over the past decade. This will be my first one man exhibit in Paris with over 1,400 square feet featuring five room settings and a state of the art media display at Maison & Objet - located in the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre.

Original Vladimir Kagan sketch of exhibit - November 2011

a paste-up of the exhibit on my visit to Forli, Italy in November

This is a sneak preview of the exhibit - a computer rendering faithfully interpreting my original concept including the cloud ceiling

I will be introducing classic design from the 50's, 60's and 70's as well as new designs for 2012. THE KAGAN NEW YORK COLLECTION is manufactured in Italy by Club House Italia with showrooms and stores worldwide.... If you can’t come in person, many of the new introductions will be available in the United States through my showroom, Ralph Pucci International in New York and Los Angeles and our other showrooms in Seatle, Chicago, Toronto.

Cantilevered walnut cabinet with integral lighting - first introduced in 1970

Cubist Club Chair from 1967

Detail of dining table leg - designed in 1958

To view the full collection, please visit my stand at Hall 7 - Stand C51 - D5 at Maison & Object Paris.

I will keep you posted on what's new and exciting at the show through my Blogs.

Posted at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

12/31/2011

Friendships

(a parting shot for 2011)

By Vladimir Kagan copyright December 31, 2011

Friendships come in different sizes and intensity. They are hard to codify: There are fair-weather friends, casual friends, social friends. There are friends you see once a year and there are those you see only on Christmas Cards. There are intrusive friends and distant friends. There are people that “wanna” be a friend but you can’t see why – At least on Face Book and Linkedin… they’re in your face but you can ignore or un-friend them. And then there are friendships that are reciprocal – a quiet understanding camaraderie.

There are people who take one look at each other and see friendship - that is chemistry. Friendships need nurturing; they grow from seedlings and sprout only with the right amount of watering. It’s not like love at first sight… that’s infatuation. These friendships can be lopsided… that’s OK.

Let me tell you about my best friend. It started as mutual admiration… two good-looking kids getting together on a date. Over the years our friendship grew… we became inseparable friends. We discovered shared interests but also divergent qualities. Untried waters… risk taking… openness. Openness is perhaps the crucial attribute. Exposing the delicate under-belly of emotions.

Shut out the world and you cloister yourself. Let the world enter your heart and it will create happiness. “You reap as you sow” – Happiness will bring a smile to your life and in turn creates laughter. Laughter is the best ingredient for good health. Not the stuff of Comedy Central, but the attitude that lets you see the brighter side of life even in the face of diversity. Life is like a bowl of cherries, enjoy it while its there; it’s an eternity and a flash – here today and gone tomorrow.

It takes two to Tango; it takes two to make an argument. The road to happiness is not a smooth path. Friends can disagree… sometimes passionately. It is not “I win- you loose”, it is a seesaw. Never, never take a grudge to bed; never wake up with a grudge. There are two sides to every argument and the solution may well be a third side. This simple lesson can take years to learn, but when it becomes a part of your life – friendship will turn to love.

We loved each other day and night… We enjoyed boundless curiosity. Our love was indestructible, always full of beans, always able to “resist both wind and tide.” We became inseparable – two peas in a pod - the Yin and Yang of life.

I had this love for over 54 years. The love of my life - my best friend, Erica, is now gone. Mercifully, memories of all pain diminish. Happiness outlasts tears – Good memories live forever.

This was our last picture together, Erica and me at a Christmas Party, the day before she died

Friendships, love and memories never die!

Posted at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

12/11/2011

Holiday Greetings from Erica and Vladimir

T’was three weeks before Christmas

And all through the house

The kids were all buzzing

Not quiet as a mouse!

Barking dog – droopy eared rabbit - singing canary – and pet fish co-coexist in our apartment. Our three granddaughters and their parents live with us under one roof… The apartment is large enough and well suited to accommodate all seven. This is a rare treat as Erica and I enjoy the benefits of assisted living and the rambunctious fun that three teenagers bring to the table!

Christmas is a serious affair in our house… advent calendars for the kids, needlepointed Christmas stocking hanging on the fireplace. The Christmas tree is already up and beautifully decorated (not by the kids – but the adults). The living room looks festive and for once uncluttered. We ought to have a few parties to celebrate this rare event… but time is running out and only a few visitors will be treated to this phenomena. One can’t help stumbling over secret boxes – still unlabeled. Resolves for frugality are left for the next year… “Remember we must support the economy”.

Everyone is preparing to go off in different directions… but wishing they were not. In fact – no one will be home for Christmas. (That’s why our big family get together is Thanksgiving.)

Days were spent designing Christmas cards… every year we say we won’t do it the next year… but tradition demands that we send one. We are seldom ready with ours… and while we expect delivery next week they may still not arrive before Christmas…. So for all of my friends in Cyber Space… here’s our electronic greeting sent to you courtesy of my Apple Cloud.

We wish all of you a festive Holiday and a peaceful New Year.

Erica & Vladi

Posted at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

12/07/2011

ART BASEL MIAMI 2011

A second hand view

Wisdom prevailed and I chose not to go… and according to all reports, I missed nothing BUT parties, parties, parties.

Though the grape-vine I learned that sales of mediocre art was brisk… Really high-end stuff stagnated with the dealers and predictable pastiche sold to the wanabees and gullible.

I’m really sorry to have missed the Design Pavilions and am told that sales were vigorous…. So the demise of the ABMB is not nigh and everyone is going to have to do this charade one more year.

As I am not able to give you my own succinct overview of this dim-witted event, here are some quotations from a reliable source (Lance Esplund, art critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg)

“We were at the W South Beach Hotel’s VIP welcoming reception hosted by Ruinart Champagne, an official sponsor of Art Basel Miami Beach, the 10th incarnation of the U.S.’s largest contemporary-art fair.”

“A-Rod Cages Owen Wilson Amid Ugly Art, Hookers at Miami Basel”

“Guests dipped giant communion wafers into fountains of white and dark chocolate that streamed from the penises of two gleaming silver putti in Angel Otero’s sculpture “Pissing Contest.””

“Miami’s fair -- where everything is not only permitted, but encouraged -- has always been more Art Bacchanal than Art Basel”

“By day, hung-over dealers scrambled to make sales to hung-over collectors.”

“When I returned in the wee hours to the Fontainebleau Hotel, bleached-blond girls -- perched on cushioned benches under inverted wedding-cake chandeliers, each her own private paradise -- shone like amber beacons floating in the pink-and-blue glow of the lobby….. There were usually about a dozen prostitutes on duty.”

For a full review of Lance Esplund's hilarious report, Google esplund, bloomberg, a-rod, owen wilson, hookers

...OK, my faithful readers, had I written this earlier, those of you who attended, might have saved a packet of money missing this Non-art-event.

A bit of devastating Miami news is that Louis Vuitton and its parent company LVMH group have partnered with Craig Robins, the developer of Miami’s Design District and are planning to turn it into a luxury retail environment with 40 to 50 fashion stores and tenants like Sephora, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy and Fendi. This will be the death knell for the wonderful independent design boutiques that have given the district its flavor and panache. Remember what happened to SoHo (In New York} - Fashion moved in and creativity moved out!)

This is great for the real estate guys but lousy for the design industry. Ground floor rents will jump from $25 per square foot to $125, effectively knocking out the core businesses that made the place a destination.

The sixty-four dollar question: Where will the next Design District spring up?

Posted at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

12/01/2011

Thanksgiving on Nantucket 2011

Thanksgiving weekend at the Kagans and all the usual suspects have arrived!… (Only one unfortunately missed the fun: Granddaughter Mallory was flying in from Bermuda and was thwarted by the weather) – Her parents arrived by ferry at 10:45 at night - delayed by ferocious sea conditions – The high-speed ferry leaving Hyannis hours earlier, was hit and crippled by a rogue wave that crushed her cargo doors – (She managed to limp into Nantucket with several hundred scared to death passengers). … This unfortunately put her out of commission for the entire week and raised havoc for hundreds of people booked for their return trip.

The high speed ferry, Iyanough, with her cargo door crushed by a rogue wave

This all may sound chaotic!…. But for Nantucket, it’s par for the course at this time of the year!

The Kagan dining room, normally seats twelve comfortably; it was transformed for eighteen! (Half of our guests are substantially portly -including me.) None-the-less, all managed to crunch themselves into our delicate antique ladder-back chairs. The children had to access their proper places by crawling under the table to emerge at their designated seats.

The "Dinner Party" with all the kiddies and some of our portly guests....

This is the weekend where the guests do the cooking and the Kagans supervise! The menu was abundant, befitting the well-proportioned company…. the 28-pound turkey perfumed the house. To assure carbohydrate loading, there were three kinds of potatoes plus a bread stuffing smothered with a heavy gravy – nearly a case of wine was consumed – and of course, no meal is completed without four pies, cakes and schlag (whipped cream for the un-initiated) plus this years newest passion: Ben & Jerry’s Late-night Snack, discovered by Erica on our model T trip to Vermont. The secret crunchy ingredient, (they said don’t tell) – chocolate covered potato chips!…. Both guests and chairs survived the onslaught. – We ended the evening roasting chestnuts over an open fire!

After diiner: lounging in the livingroom - brother & sister catching up - children playing on my outdoor sofa brought indoors for the winter and doubling as a livingroom couch - guests chatting it up on my favorite Victorian Love Seat

Nantucket's other events

Over the past 30 years, it has become a tradition for Vice-President Joe Biden to spend Thanksgiving with us on the Island (Not the Kagans but the larger family that makes up Nantucket) Well guarded by secret service men inconspicuously concealed within the strolling crowds (with their short cropped hair, black suits, sunglasses and earphones). Mr. Biden mixes freely with the crowd and graciously posed with our daughter Jessica for a photo on her i.Phone.

Daughter Jessica with the Vice President - Joe Biden

Anything that happens twice in succeeding years on Nantucket becomes an institution. And so it is with the Cold Turkey Plunge… a ridiculous affair, where sane people strip down to their bathing suits to take a swim in Nantucket’s frigid waters… This was the 7th Annual Plunge. The theme was “Splashin’ for a Passion”, and hundreds of swimmers plunged into the harbor as a fundraiser for the Nantucket Athenaeum (our local library). Water temperature was reported at 56 degrees… For politicians it is better than kissing babies and the Vice President made his plunge last year.

Photos by Mai Linh Norton

Nantucket's hardier folks taking a plunge into 56% water

Nantucket parties abound at this time of the year… you must be certain to be seen at the right ones! Among our invitations was an afternoon Sicilian Pizza extravaganza: all the male guests were given mustaches and each table was provided with abundant bottles of Chianti, Proseco, and for the teetotalers: Pellegrino. Artisan Pizzas were prepared in a wood-burning oven. (Trucked in for the occasions.) The party was to have a professional accordion player for the proper atmosphere… he failed to come, and I was cajoled into bringing mine!… A guarantee to close the party prematurely… (I didn’t produce it till the end… to clear out the stragglers in the garden!)

Vladimir "Guido" Kagan playing his accordian

Scallops are as much a Nantucket Thanksgiving tradition as the turkey. (I love to make them cerviche – Erica prefers lightly sautéed… either way, the meal is always memorable.)

Nantucket Bay Scallops are a world famous delicacy. It is a local micro industry. Hardy fishermen go out at 5 in the morning, in small boats, rigged with pulley-cranes, a culling board, a sturdy outboard motor, 10 empty baskets and usually an assistant. Each boat has a strict daily limit of 10 bushels (monitored by the harbor master). It is cold and messy work. Filling their quorum depends on good luck and knowing where the illusive scallops have swum…. (Yes, scallops swim!) This can take anything from a few hours to a good half day. Next begins the dirty task of shucking (separating the delicious muscle from its slimy interior) – This is done in shucking sheds or the garage. It takes more people to shuck than it does to catch and therefore neighbors, wives, friends and the winter-unemployed, are drafted into this task. 10 Bushels of scallops yields about 36 pounds of meat, fetching $10 per pound at wholesale … by the time it reaches your table, you’ll pay $30.

Erica and houseguest Rob inspecting scalloping boats after a morning of fishing

The scourge of the scallop is the starfish… it sucks them up faster than a vacuum… It’s understandable that Scallopers hate the critters and drag them in with their catch… (If the Japanese would only develop a recipe for them… they could become a cash crop instead of a curse.)

After the catch, the work begins - schucking the scallops in the family garage - this is Sousa's Fish Market, a local treasure.

Scallop shells and Star Fish

The day's catch - 36 pounds of scallops ready for market

To wind up this year’s weekend - "After the storm comes the calm!" - The weather turned sunny with balmy temperatures into the 60s…. Bad memories faded quickly and another memorable Thanksgiving became history.

Photo by Jessica Cushman

Easy Street basin after the storm - empty of boats except or this picture-perfect skiff

Posted at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

11/17/2011

My MAD Museum’s Artist Visionary Award

My moment of Glory under the Sun

The VISIONARY awards waiting to be distributed to this year's winners

Me in front of the coveted bronze award

This past Monday I was honored at a very elegant award’s dinner VISIONARIES 2011 given by the MAD Museum. (Museum of Art & Design)…. It was my moment of hovering in stratified air: My very distinguished fellow awardees were Denis Abrams, President of Benjamin Moore Paints, who received the well deserved CORPORATE VISIONARY AWARD for the splendid job his company is doing with color and promoting Green. Next at the podium was Robert King, the founder and CEO of Humanscale, who’s company produces some of the most elegant ergonomic office furniture in America and who generously donated three of his chairs to the fund-raising auction (I hope that my bid won at least one of them!) His award was as a DESIGN VISIONARY…. the emotional occasion of the evening was a presentation of a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT VISIONARY AWARD given in the memory of Jean-Louis Dumas the founder of Hermes, accepted by his handsome son, who flew in from Paris for this event…. And then there was me, hobbling up to the podium to receive the Museum’s ARTIST VISIONARY AWARD… a tough category, as there were so many qualified candidates out there beside me.

Holly Hotchner, the MAD Museum's Director, welcoming me to the podium to receive my award

My moment in the limelight! Accepting my beautiful award

Congratulations from Pierre-Louis Dumas of Hermes and Holly Hotchner

Returning to my table for a standing ovation - that's Ralph Pucci facing and Joe Vitagliano, the C.O.O. of my company with back to camera

What became evident at this chic evening was that I am truly a minimalist, (not in my creativity but in my diminished size!) It was apparent, that to be important in the corporate world, it is mandatory to be six foot tall or over. My shrunken 5’5” (I used to be slightly taller than 5’6”) just doesn’t cut it. Even the ladies towered over me! (You can imagine what that did to my ego!) To mitigate this shortcoming, they took a group photo for posterity with me surrounded by two of the ladies sitting in front of the towering giants standing behind.

The gaggle of awardees standing (I'm the diminutive one fourth from the right... if you haven't already guessed!) From left Denis Abrams, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Holly Hotchner, me and Robert King

...And the more congenial group photo: yours truly seated between Holly Hotchner and my wife, Erica. Standing from left: Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Robert King, Lewis Kruger - Board Chairman, Denis Abrams, an important Board member whose name I've forgotten and Barbara Tober - Chair Emerita

These tall gentlemen had a lot to say to earn their rewards…some were reading from documents four or five pages or longer… (I had a one-pager tucked into my coat pocket, primarily because, under duress, I can’t remember the names I needed to acknowledge for this Oscar moment.) In a spurt of genius, I decided to scrap notes and talk off the cuff… no names, no thank you’s, but a lot of accolades to the museum for selecting ME for this award…. I was rewarded with a standing ovation…(so there go your giants… speech may be silver, but brevity is golden).

At the cocktail reception, from left to right: my daughter Jessica Cushman, my wife Erica, Michael Hertenstein (restaurateur whose latest creation is Catch in the Meatpacking District), me, Dr. Brian Saltzman (owner of the Robert restaurant at the MAD Museum) and a lovely lady, whose name I don't remember.

The elegant guests at the jam packed cocktail reception

Cindy Allen, editor of Interior Design Magazine - Rene Landegger with Erica - Wendell Castle

Two still-lifes - the tasteful table arrangement with hand blown glass flowers and the bronze awards

The evening was a huge success both financially and culturally. We managed to fill two tables of 12 each with friends and family. The trophy is one of the most artistic pieces of sculpture I have ever received: a sleek solid bronze abstraction on an engraved black marble pedestal…. worthy of being in a museum! (I had to clear a bookshelf to give it the space it deserves.)

Today, I am back down to earth, rocking in my old office chair as I inform you of Monday night’s memorable moments.

Photo credit: all photos by Ric Kallaher

Posted at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

11/13/2011

A visit to Italy

SWITZERLAND vs. ITALY

SWITZERLAND pristine – precise – precious – predictable

ITALY Precarious – precipitous – un-predictable and romantic

The why’s for this difference is a matter of temperament. The Swiss will be Swiss and the Italians, well... they are a different breed.

The transition happens abruptly as you cross the border from Brig in Switzerland to Domodossola in Italy, the once dreaded border town that could hold you in limbo for hours as you waited for the lethargic customs officials to do their job and you tried to remember where you had stashed your documents. Now you pass through in a flash. Its railroad station is reduced to a ghost of its bustling self, surrounded by dilapidated warehouses and railroad cars covered in graffiti. (The common market sealed its fate!) However, as the train shoots just a few miles south of Domodossola, you are smitten by bucolic alpine lakes that glide past your window: Isola, Como, Maggiori … each picture postcard perfect…. By contrast, Brig, the pristine Swiss border town is tucked into a steep ravine with towering snow-capped mountains and Zermatt looming above its black forests.

Brig: the Swiss border town buried deep in a ravine of black forests and towering mountains

Domodossola: Across the border in italy - a huge freight terminal and Italian graffiti artists at work

Our Swiss Eurostar train from Geneva to Milan rides as smoothly as silk, luxuriating in comfortable armchairs covered in luscious textiles. The only disappointment in this 200 miles per hour bullet “cocoon” is the sleek dining-car: once the pride of any railroad, with china dishes, cloth napkins, choice cutlery and glassware. This luxury has given way to paper plates and cups with plastic cutlery and cafeteria-style service…. Still, the food was excellent.

The state-of-the-art Swiss Eurostar passing vinyards planted on evey square inch of the mountain

in fact, most views out of the high-speed train photograph like this - Swoosh!

and now for a glimps of the northern itialian countryside - (these are photos from the internet)... the train was too fast to get good photos.

We transferred trains in Milan, to the Italian version of the Eurostar, (albeit 20 years older) The décor was drab, the train rattles at high speed through ramshackle cityscapes…. trivial announcements are made in Italian and translated into English, but important ones are only in Italian! After coming to a stop in Bologna, we watched passengers disembark, (like rats leaving a sinking ship). Something was amiss, but we blissfully remained in our seats as no one bothered to inform us that the train had engine problems… Ultimately, we realized that we were the sole passengers left on the train and tried to get off, but all the doors had closed…. What seemed like an eternity later, a conductor, making his sweep of the train before it was towed off to the repair yard, rescued us. The experience though amusing, was Kafkaesque…. But I am diverting… As the train careened through the countryside, leaving drab cities behind, the landscape gave way to verdant orchards and lush vineyards. …. We arrived in Forli at our hotel and a four-course dinner in a neighborhood restaurant (Italians are proud of their food and keep the restaurants brightly lit unlike their Swiss counterparts where the dim lighting supposedly enhances the atmosphere) Our meal started with an overflowing tray of salami, sausages cheese and prosciutto, followed by the prima course: a platter of pasta smothered with aromatic white truffles! (the regional specialty) and finally the main course of freshly caught local fish, grilled to perfection, washed down with bottles of mellow Italian red wine. Our bacchanalian feast ended with a lemon sorbet that melted in your mouth. … The comparison between Italy and Switzerland became superfluous. (Forli is located in Romany, reputed to have Italy’s best cuisine… though neighboring states may dispute the claim.)

The next morning we dashed off to our factory and the glamorous new showrooms and design offices, where we were overwhelmed by the progress already accomplished in the developing of the prototype of my new collection…. Working three ten-hour days with an enthusiastic design staff, we fleshed out the collection - selected colors and fabrics - developed a design concepts for the exhibit space of a new VLADIMIR KAGAN collection for this January’s vaunted Maison & Objet show in Paris, to be followed in April at the Salone di Mobile in Milan.

••••

Upshot: with the Kagans, there is no planning ahead: our visit to Italy has scuttled our winter plans from a docile retreat in Florida to a topsy-turvy schedule of travel. Paris was certainly not on the agenda, nor was Milan. One thing is certain: in the Kagan household…. NOTHING is cast in stone.

….Unfortunately, for a preview of the designs, you will have to wait for Paris… until then, they are under wraps.

Posted at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

11/09/2011

A visit with John Makepeace

John Makepeace: England’s preeminent furniture maker

I think of myself as a modernist – in fact I am an antiquarian.

John Makepeace is a true modernist!

I live amongst clutter; antiques, a mish-mash of collections and a house full of often reject Kagan furniture…. (That describes our modern apartment in New York). - Come to Nantucket and our house is full of antiques; some purchased – some acquired with the house over fifty years ago. (There are fewer than a dozen pieces of original Kagan furniture in the entire house and its garden)… Visit us in Palm Beach and you will be shocked to find NOT a single piece of Kagan - only threadbare thrift shop stuff… That is how yours truly, a designer of modern furniture lives!

It is astounding that two devotees of modern can live so differently. (I wanna be like John!) But much as I try to be a minimalist, Erica and I are insufferable maximalists – more is more!

We visited John Makepeace in his 16^th- 18^th Century stone house called FARRS in the little town of Beaminster (population 3,000) in Dorset, located in the South West of England, across the Channel from France. In this historic home, John and Jenny Makepeace have caringly restored all the architectural details into a minimalist aesthetic…. Look through the antique iron framed windows into the garden and you see topiary of yew trees planted in 1840 that have grown into wonderfully amorphous shapes over last 170 years. The ancient stonewall driveway to the house is planted with an avenue of evergreens, which are carefully clipped each year. (These are known by the exotic name of Phylleria latifolia - commonly known as English Olive, although no such thing exists). And then there is Jenny’s abundant fruit, flower and vegetable garden, which provided us with delectable meals.

Jenny and John Makepeace welcoming Erica and myself to their home in Beaminster, Dorset

Views from the windows into the gardens and the villiage beyond

Walk into the kitchen and you see Sweden's gift to England, the AGA stove which is on 24/7 and keeps the damp out of the entire house.

The Makepeaces found their amusing kitchen chairs on a trip to Italy

John and Jenny have tastefully decorated this gem of a country house with surprising colors and carefully selected modern and contemporary applied art, all illuminated with state of the art lighting. Their home is filled with exquisite examples of John’s unique furniture. He never replicates his work… each piece is a commission or a one-off design.

Our beautiful guest room was furnished with one-of-a-kind Makepeace furniture surounded by sensitively restored architectural details

John walking us through the house

The dining room filled with examples of John's chairs and table

In the hallway, a grandfather's Clock in a Makepeace case

John occupies a unique place in English furniture design and making. He has succeeded in expressing his philosophy of sustainability, craftsmanship and sculptural visions through sensitive workmanship, often applying high technology to achieve his unique interpretations of contemporary furniture. His illustrious career has spanned nearly five decades.

examples of John Makepeace's poetic sculptural furniture

John had the vision to promulgate his design philosophy through teaching young craftsmen and women to think creatively outside of the box, but also to recognize the need for a practical business sensibility. To this end, he bought Parnham House in Dorset in 1976, (a dilapidated Grand 1 Tudor house,) which he restored into a center for learning furniture making. It became famous as the Parnham Trust, a School for Craftsmen in Wood, which turned into the Parnham College, alongside but separately from his own studio and workshops. The school provided integrated courses in furniture design, making and business management. One of his early students was Viscount Lindley, nephew to the Queen of England, who has gone on to become a celebrated furniture maker and Konstantin Grcic, the Munich based, celebrated furniture and industrial designer.

John gave up running the Trust in 2001 when he sold Parnham and moved the college to its new and fascinating campus at Hooke Park where it amalgamated with the Architectural Association, the international school of architecture, where pupils today learn on high-tech computers (not a drafting board in sight!) however they still have the pleasure of working hands-on, creating their adventurous ideas in the workshop. All the recent buildings in the wooded complex are student designed. (To give you an idea of the school’s Avant-garde credentials: it is the same school that gave us Zaha Hadid.)

This unprepossessing Quonset Hut structure houses the workshops of the Architectural School... don't be fooled by its simple shape... it is built with state-of-the-art high-tech timber-building technology

The building's wall and ceiling are bent fresh sapling woods harvested in the forest when thinning it out

construction details, using green timber, steel cables and concrete

A building housing the school's cafeteria

model of new building under construction - experimental structural joinery

Last year, John was nominated for the Duke of Edinburgh's Designers Prize alongside Zaha Hadid. The award is intended to “recognize an individuals' total contribution to design through professional practice, leadership, education, changing public perception, innovation and environmental sustainability.” - The award went to Bill Moggridge, inventor of the lap-top (and now director of the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York) - a very appropriate winner; John was honored with a Special Commendation.

With all this acclaim, John Makepeace remains a modest private man. (He doesn’t own a cell phone and is only a reluctant user of the Internet.)

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In our tightly scheduled twenty-four hours, John introduced us to one of his former pupils, Petter (that is not a spelling mistake) Southall. His workshop is in an old barn, tucked away in a bucolic setting. Petter works with two shop assistants and makes extraordinarily complex modern furniture using the ancient bending techniques of the shipwrights that had been building wooden boats in the neighborhood for generations. Out of this mix of old and the new, Petter has produced furniture of astonishing modern idiom.

PETTER IN WORKSHOP 1

Petter Southall in front of his shop and with projects in work

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Our brief visit was filled with unexpected experiences, not least of all, the narrow single lane roads, running between high grassy banks with towering hedges. Everyone drives with great abandon around hairpin turns, no one blows their horn, but a sudden encounter with a mammoth lorry (truck to my American readers) leaves you breathless. Who will back down? (Of course we did - frequently) a quarter mile down a winding road till there was space to by-pass… Miraculously, we survived these hair-raising encounters, and made it to the train on time… albeit three hours later than planned.

Close encounter with a behemoth

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10/31/2011

Zaha Hadid’s London

Zaha Hadid and I have been friends for many years… long before she became an icon. I met Zaha when she was building the controversial Fire House for Vitra, (the Avant Garde furniture manufacturer located in Weil am Rhine Germany). I, at the time, was working with Alexander VonVeggesack, the director of the Vitra Museum. Vitra was my first breakthrough into the rarefied world of museums when they purchased a number of my designs for their permanent collection.

Zaha Hadid's fire Station at the Vitra factory in Weil am Rhine, Germany - 1994

I had always admired Zaha’s edgy work - her thinking outside of the box - her tenacity in sticking to her guns… She stood out as an uncompromising believer in the unlimited possibilities of architecture… Not the straightjacket version of the 20^th Century… but a vision of the fluid movement that is defining the 21^st Century.

Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art Center - Cincinnati, Ohio - 2003

Zaha’s career has been a tumultuous road to the top. Influential and groundbreaking, many of her designs were initially never built. Her work remained theoretical and mostly unknown except in the esoteric world of academia. Until 2004… when she reached the pinnacle of the architectural world: the first woman ever to receive The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Noble Prize. Since then she has received many more awards, retrospective exhibits and was ranked 69^th on the Forbes list of “The world’s 100 Most Powerful Women” and ranked the world's 100 top thinkers in Time Magazine's 2010 list of the world's most influential people.

Left: rendering for Abu Dhabi Performing Art Ceentre, UAE - Right: Spiralling Tower, Barcelona, Spain

Since Pritzker, she has become awash in major commissions around the World. Zaha runs a tight ship and her architectural firm – Zaha Hadid Architects - is over 300 people strong. She manages her time carefully, but in spite of this enormous success, Zaha finds time for old friends. She is an elegant lady that could well be on the Best Dressed 100 list. Our lunch with Zaha was certainly one of the great pleasures of our London visit and being in town for the opening of her latest achievement, the Roca London Galleries was indeed fortuitous.

The Roca London Gallery - opened last week - Roco is a Spanish manufacturer of bathroom fictures

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And finally, our luncheon with Zaha at Wollseys... a fashionable eatery on Picadilly in London

Lunch with old friends; Michael and Jenny Barraclough, Erica, my sister Tanya, Zaha and me

A special hug for old time's sake

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10/28/2011

Two Museum Exhibits in London

Where Else But In London!

Only in London can you find two totally disparate art exhibits derived from the same subject: Art created by disturbed minds.

One is low key and probably missed by 99% of the museum going public: THE MUSEUM OF EVERYTHING AT SELFRIDGES, (the clever upscale department store that is taking some of the wind out of Harrods’s sails). This show is hailed as Britain’s only home for unintentional, untrained and undiscovered artists – (this is Exhibit #4), featuring 400 works from studios for artists with developmental and other disabilities. It is not simply an art show, it is a creative revolution led by some of the world’s most invisible makers, creating images both abstract and through perceived realism – some bordering on great – all expressing their inner disturbances.

The other is at the vaunted V&A (Victoria & Albert) Museum, attempting to define POSTMODERNISM: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990. Unlike the invisible creators of the EVERYTHING show… this exhibit is laced with celebrity names such as Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Karl Lagerfeld, Ettore Sottsass, Jeff Coons, Charles Jencks, Michael Graves and many, many more.

Both shows see the world through a distorted lens.

Selfridge’s curatorial and decorating staff created a deliberately down-scale environment in a dilapidated setting reminiscent of the artist’s own working milieu; small stalls devoted to one or two artists, obliging the viewer to delve deeper into their complex expressions.

The V&A’s exhibit is a lavish affair meandering over many levels and into cubicles, some cavernous - others small and intimate. Some vividly colorful and awash with blaring music, others in subdued tones to fit the apocalyptic expressions of the artists.

Throughout the ages, art has transitioned through different mood-sets: The Renaissance following Byzantium, German Impressionism after the First World War and Abstract Expressionism after the Second War and. Each has left its impact and the world has moved on.

Postmodernism is no different. Itcelebrated disenchantment, but it ignited a creative spark - a laser-beam that shines into the future. These were the visionaries of the 70’s and 80’s but their impact is felt in the 21^st Century.

Modern: had become stale – infatuated with itself, drowned in its own abundance and self-aggrandizement. Creativity needed a jolt and the Postmodernists gave it just that. Their radical, often grotesque deformation of the accepted (a German world best describes it as gewolt – belabored) moved us into a more creative free-spirited interpretation for the 21^st Century.

I have been an early devotee of deconstructionist design. It has obliged me to think outside of the box - stimulating new solutions and aesthetics. My first encounter with this new philosophy was Frank Gehry’s edgy Vitra Museum and Zaha Hasid’s Fire House for the same complex.(It was also the begining a wonderful friendship with Zaha.) In Prague I saw the exaggerated treatment of The Dancing House named Vltava, by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic. It is the most striking, and famous, modern building in the Czech capital. In Vienna we discovered Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who started as a painter in the early 1950s, however, increasingly became focused on architecture. In 1972 Hundertwasser created a controversial housing complex advocating “natural forms of decay”. He attempted to demonstrate his ideas of forested roofs; he called "tree tenants" and the "window right" of every resident to embellish the facade around his windows. In these buildings Hundertwasser developed new shapes, such as the "eye-slit" house and the "high-rise meadow house"… Interesting, provocative and an eye to the still to be defined green movement in building. He was a visionary…. albeit a crazy one. In the same timeframe I met Charles Jenks in Scotland and saw his magnificent manipulations of the landscape.... these were all eye opening moments for me.

I still live by my dictum that if a design is to be good, function must be its driving force… I am not a devotee of change for the sake of change!

P.S.

Sadly we barely had time to see the delightful little chez d’oeuvres titled THE POWER OF MAKING,at the V&A... a wonderful gem celebrating craft, materials and technology…. We'll allow more time -Next visit!

The neon sign that welcomes you into the V&A's massive exhibit of Postmodernism