GREEK ISLAND ARCHITECTURE

Boy, I'd like to visit the Greek Islands and see how life is lived in those beautiful hillside towns. Imagine what the architecture must be like!

I wonder what it's like to live in homes (above) that are like theatrical stage sets.

And on hills. What's that like?

Greek exteriors are great, but everybody knows that already. I wonder what the homes are like inside.

 The interiors you see in books (above) are radically different than anything you'd find in America. Do they work? I don't know. I'd have to spend some time in them before I could tell. There's no doubt that they're beautiful, though. 

When I researched this I was surprised to find that a lot of island interiors looked Turkish. An internet site says the Greeks were slaves of the Turks from the fall of Constantinople in the 1400s to Greek independence in 1830, so I guess that explains it.

Here's another home with a similar bedroom. The beds are on what appears to be a theatrical stage, complete with theater curtains. Wow! What an interesting idea!

I do wonder, though, how you get sex privacy if everyone sleeps in the same room. Also, what do you do about snoring?

Beds are frequently left unmade during the day. Even so, the rooms still look good.

Meals are often eaten outside.

Sometimes dining areas are similar to outdoor rooms (above).

This idea of a room that's both indoors and outdoors is intriguing.

I'll end with this open-air basement for drying clothes. Geez, a place that can make the drying of clothes look interesting sounds like a destination to me.

NICE OLD HOUSES

As many readers know, I'll be moving to a small farm town in a few months and I'm having trouble finding a house that excites me. In desperation I considered taking a house that (possibly) nobody else wanted...something the local eccentric used to live in,  with a dining area in the hallway and a half-hidden kitchen. It had a weird vibe, too...like an exorcist would be required.

But scratch that. I'm too superstitious to live in something that needs an exorcist. I don't want to be dragged into Hell just because I tried to eat a piece of pie in the middle of the night.

That's not the house I was talking about above, but it's similar. This one is a lot more cheerful. Anyway, thinking about eccentric little houses in the woods got me thinking about older houses and how they frequently have more to offer than newer ones.

Now I'm thinking that a remodeled version of something old may be my best bet. I like this redo (above) of a traditional French kitchen. It has space for a large, cottage-style social table, and that's useful for more than just entertaining.  It's a staging area where you can lay out all your ingredients for a meal before cooking, all the while listening to audio books or music. Nice, eh?

BTW, I noticed that older French houses are frequently built a little bit lower than ground level. Why is that? I assume its an adaptation to the uneven level of the ground, but maybe I'm wrong. Doesn't rain water seep into a house that's below ground level?

Who wants to live in a modernist box? I can't imagine entertaining friends in a house like this (above).

But what am I talking about? Apart from relatives I won't have any friends. People where I'm going think Californians are freaks. 

CHARLES H. TRAUB: PHOTOGRAPHER

Big cities are a gift to photographers. If you have a camera you'll never run out of subjects there.

What do you think of these Manhattan photos taken by photographer Charles H. Traub in the 70s? Wow! He calls these his Lunchtime pictures.

In a big city it's tempting to take pictures of tragic subjects like public alcoholics but Taub prefers to photograph the more ordinary people who thrive there. That's the kind of subject that interests me. I like to see people enjoying the city they built for themselves.

These black and whites weren't by Taub, but I don't know who took them.
They make a powerful argument that cities should legitimize and promote whatever activity looks good in photographs...within reason, I mean.

Sometimes I like the clutter of advertising. It reminds me that one of the purposes of life is to make things that you sell to other people. The fun of commerce is that it connects you with a community of people who all compete to make life more interesting for each other.

Some areas should be zoned to allow advertising to run amuk.

Any excuse for scaffolding and cranes works for me. Seeing Portland's Steel Bridge converted me to the cause of exposed structure.

THE LATEST FASHION

The tiny house movement appears to be here to stay. Even people with money to spend want houses that are thin and cramped.

Thin exteriors could bring about a civil war in the home design industry. Minimalism still dominates interior design and that requires big, empty spaces. The only way to reconcile these two opposing philosophies is to have a house with only one big room that combines all functions. In a room like the one above you would eat off the sofa and take a shower in the planter. 

It looks like the interior faction is going to be on the losing side. That's too bad because there's been some minimalist innovations that even a maximalist like me can get behind. I kinda like interiors like the one above, though they might be better suited for offices than homes.  

The hot furniture designer now is Tom Dixon. That's his work above. He likes the digital look. I dunno. It's not my taste.

The table above might work if it could be made sturdy.

But really...flat surface table design is so...yesterday. Maybe the tables to come won't be tables at all. They'll be contrivances that make it appear that the plates and cups are floating.

Minimal dining utensils, naturally.

I notice that blob-shaped day-glow sneakers are all the rage now.

Since car design follows shoe design that means near future cars will be day-glow blobs also.

I used to think mens t-shirt fashions were here to stay, but a new formalism seems to be right around the corner.

Tight suit jackets with long sleeves will make what's in your closet obsolete.

Way above the ankle pants have been here for a while.

And women's fashions...that's a subject for another post.

ITALIAN HILLTOP TOWNS

I'm told that all over the mountainous parts of Italy you can find hilltop towns like the one above. Boy, they're beautiful...but you have to wonder: how do people make a living up there? The only good farmland is in the flatland below. Do workers really climb up and down the steep hill every day?

So far as I can tell, the answer is yes...or at least it used to be yes.

I guess you just developed good cardio if you lived there.

One good thing about living on a slope is that drainage is never a problem. Gravity pulls everything down to the mountain bottom. Garbage, human and animal waste...you name it, everything rolls down to some gully or other at the base.

As you can imagine, all that climbing and waste avoidance is no fun. So why did people choose to live up there? Well, they didn't choose it. They were forced to do it. In the Middle Ages barons wanted castles and fortress towns built up there and peasants were coerced into living there so they could build everything.

People had no choice. Besides, the lowlands were full of bandits and marauders. At least the mountains were safe.

Since they were stuck there, people did their best to beautify the towns. Some dirt poor places still had ornate staircases (above) or piazzas.

And , whatever the inconveniences, they still had the comfort of living in beautiful spaces (above).

After a point, though, the nobility moved out and the people who were left didn't see the point in keeping the place up. 

Things fell into disrepair. People never liked living up there and when they had a chance they bailed to the flatlands and to America. A few hilltowns on the tourist routes made out alright but most of them became near ghost towns.

Here's (above) a village in Southern Italy that's been completely abandoned. Living there would be kind of spooky but...hey, maybe it's free.

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BTW: I'm going to take a vacation for a week. I'll be back soon!!!!!!!!!