Interior of the Larkin Administration Building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1904 (demolished in 1950).
Look at this office. Innovative for the time, yes. But do you think anything creative was ever produced in this space? No way!
Fun fact: Wright designed some of the desks so that the chairs were immovable - just screwed right onto the desk. Talk about being chained to your work. Those people could have used access to a yoga dungeon for sure.
For some really great Larkin ephemera click HERE
Chillspacing: How to Have the Coolest and Most Creative Office in the World
As part of my 2011 Lotus Awards hosting duties, I recently visited top ad agency Rethink to put my cool/creative workplace theories to the “IRL” test, and lead a guided video tour outlining some dynamic action items for anyone who wants to transform their own office or workplace into the trans-media creative live-work-play biosphere of their dreams, with Bon Iver Muzak and everything!
Attention corporate/contract/commercial interior designers/architects: This is a very important video. I would probably take notes, because he drops a lot of pretty radical terminology and design concepts you might not be familiar with. YET.
Alexander Calder, Smart Ass
“Would you just initial your OK and return this to me?”
This (and a postcard of this) is how I have decorated my work area. I don’t work in a cubicle, but at a desk in a small, open office and I try to keep my space minimalist. I did have a de Kooning hanging over my head for a while. I don’t know the name of the piece that is there now but I’m not all that fond of it and I hope it gets replaced with something I like better soon. I’m getting spoiled with fine art.
I updated the hardware on my desk drawers at work today. No more spider. These are vintage - I bought a dozen of them on eBay a few years back, and all I can remember about them is they were categorized as “Eames era” or something like that. I am very pleased with myself.
![So, this building exists. I had no idea. It’s a giant picnic basket in case you couldn’t tell from the photo.
The Longaberger Company Headquarters, Newark, Ohio
[via]](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lanjophUrX1qzvxbko1_400.jpg)
So, this building exists. I had no idea. It’s a giant picnic basket in case you couldn’t tell from the photo.
The Longaberger Company Headquarters, Newark, Ohio
[via]
Hamptons Barbie window display & graffiti at a realtors office in Sag Harbor, NY.
When I visited Los Angeles earlier this month, I was super fortunate to get a private tour of the Hollywood landmark Capitol Records building. The trip was orchestrated through a friend, and happened on an overcast Saturday afternoon, while the whole place was otherwise empty (with the exception of a few security guards, a sound engineer, and his daughter, who was having a piano lesson in Studio-A while her dad finished mixing some tracks) when we arrived.
The Capitol Tower is the former headquarters of Capitol Records, and located near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Songwriter Johnny Mercer created Capitol Records in 1942 with Hollywood music store owner Glenn Wallichs and songwriter/movie producer Buddy DeSylva. Their first gold single was Cow Cow Boogie, recorded by Ella Mae Morse, in 1942, and is totally my new jam.
The 13-story reinforced-concrete and steel Futurist building was designed by Welton Becket and completed in 1956. According to Wikipedia, it was the world’s first circular office tower, and was engineered to be earthquake-resistant, but legend has it that it was not intended to so strongly resemble a stack of vinyl 45’s on a turntable. It was also the first record company to open in California - the three major record companies of the day - Victor, Columbia and Decca - were all established in New York.
From a 2008 article in the LA Times, here are some one-liners from a record trade magazine, published two months after the tower’s opening:
“It’s round like a record, but what are they going to do when the industry changes to tape?”
“There are no squares in the Capitol Tower.”
“You ought to put a coin machine in front of the building so tourists can drop in fifty cents and watch the Tower revolve.”
“Secretaries are going to love the new building because their bosses can’t corner them there.”
“I hear they’re changing the speeds on the freeway behind the Capitol Tower to 78, 45 and 33 1/3 m.p.h.”
“Song publisher’s lament: ‘I went to Capitol and they gave me the run-around.’”
“We hear there’s a huge record changer on the roof that ejects floors.”
“Now that the intersection of Hollywood and Vine has the ultra-modern Capitol tower, the name’s being changed to Hollywood and Vinyl.”
“After they put an Italian restaurant on the roof, they’re going to call the building the Tower of Pizza.”
The interiors of the building are just as modern as the exterior, everything is gorgeous rich wood paneling, lots of glass and geometry, sleek lighting, black leather upholstered Barcelona chairs, and a touch of leopard print. On the ground floor are lounges, offices, tape-to-disk dubbing rooms, and three recording studios (two of which, [A & B] can be combined into a single room with space for 75 musicians, allowing for the recording of movie soundtracks and orchestral music).
“Capitol’s recording studios were designed by guitarist and sound expert Les Paul to minimize noise and vibration, a newly important goal in the high-fidelity sound era.
The studios feature 10-inch-thick concrete exterior walls, surrounding a one-inch air gap, surrounding an inner wall that floats on layers of rubber and cork — all in an effort to provide complete sound isolation.
The facility also features echo chambers: subterranean concrete bunkers allowing engineers to add real physical reverberation during the recording process. The eight chambers are located 30 feet underground, and are trapezoidal-shaped with 10-inch concrete walls and 12-inch thick concrete ceilings. The chambers feature speakers on one side and microphones on the other, permitting an echo effect lasting up to five seconds.” [source]
In June of 2008, the echo chambers were threatened to be compromised by the proposal to build a condominium with an underground garage. Hollywood conservationists and “musicians, producers and sound engineers warn that the project would produce noise and vibrations that will make quality sound recording impossible at Capitol’s famed studios” [source]. Even though the project was ultimately approved, the developers agreed to make concessions during construction, to protect the acoustic integrity of the chambers under the building [source].
The rest of the giant photo tour can be seen below:
At the base of the building’s southern face is a colorful but faded wall mural by artist Richard Wyatt, titled “Hollywood Jazz.” The mural features portraits of Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and more.
At the top of the 150’ tall building (!we got to tour the roof!), is a needle topped by a red light, which has blinked the letters H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D in Morse Code since the building’s opening in 1956.
As someone visiting from another town, it was a really great way to see some postcard-like views of the whole city all around, even on a cloudy day.
What else can I say, this place really blew my skirt up. Getting to see this classic American mid-century building from the inside out, top to bottom, was such an amazing experience not only as a student of historical interior design & architecture, but also as an appreciator of music. Thank yous again to those who made this trip possible - it’s not something I ever imagined I would get to do, and am so grateful to have had the chance!
LINK - Vintage shots of the buildings exterior and the studio interiors, from a 1957 issue of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
Check out Parliament’s (a design group, not the government) studio. It looks like most of the features are reclaimed or vintage. C’mon everybody, drool with me.
Drooling all over that wall of logs.
The $3995 Mayfair Steamer Secretary Trunk is available from Restoration Hardware. But if you want something similar with a modern finish/appearance, there’s the Trunk Station AD or the home entertainment oriented Pinel & Pinel’s Home Entertainment Trunks. What we’d really hope is for a stylish DIY version out there.
(Via Apartment Therapy Unplugged | The “Mayfair Steamer Secretary Trunk” Mini Home Office)
I second the hope for a DIY version. I would very much like something like that in my own home, only with insides built to accommodate clothing rather than technology. I am embarrassed to have just admitted that but lets be honest: I have more fashion asshole inclinations than technological tendencies. Fuck it, you know? I am a grown woman and I would totally love a big dress-up trunk to make me feel like a little girl by its sheer oversize scale. And were it filled with sparkly size 13 drag queen high heels that I could clomp around in, gigantic glittery dresses and strings of pearls the length of garden hoses, my pretty pretty princess regression fantasy would be complete.
A & M Records, Hollywood, California, by Susan Ressler
From the Los Angeles Documentary Project (1980)
Gelatin silver print on paper (11 x 14 in.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Photography Museum of Los Angeles
One of our fave bloggers and Apartment Therapy book veterans, Victoria of sfgirlbybay, has redone her home office. We featured the previous incarnation, which we really enjoyed for its clean look, but this new version is even better… Victoria put her West Elm desk at one end of her living room. She pairs the desk with an Ikea chair and underneath is an Ikea shelf she installed wheels to in order to create a rolling printing station. Our favorite detail are the various sized framed artworks that take up the entire wall. We especially like that her Mac monitor takes up a spot on the wall, as if it were its own work of art (and we suppose, with the right screen saver, it could be. It reminds us of the television set-up we posted about a few months back.(via Apartment Therapy Unplugged | Mac Monitor Turns into Another Work of Art)
Home office of Yves St Laurent, photographed by Heidi Slimane
