Sunday, March 08, 2009

WHAT KIND OF LIVING ROOM?


What kind of living room do you prefer? Me, I like ones with lots of light, like the one designed by Carl Larsson above. Actually, my source might have mislabeled this picture. It looks more like a sewing room to me, but its nice and cheery, and there are elements that would be nice in a living room. Click to enlarge.



Amazingly, after decades of modernism the classic American living room (above) still holds up as an ideal.  The problem is that this was created for the kind of tasteful New England interiors they were building in 1920, and it looks a little out of place in most modern houses.
 


Some people (above) should have their license to decorate revoked. Really, if you can't do it yourself you should plead with a friend to help you out. 

Maybe more chords would help.



Here's (above) a sculptor's living room. The furniture is islands of marble and there's a forest of tall, awkward sculptures. It's completely impractical, but I like the idea of a house that reflects the vocation of the owner.  One kind of house for the accountant and the blacksmith is tyranny.



Yikes! A modernist nightmare (above)! I'd go nuts if I had to live there.



Funny living rooms (above) are seldom comfortable.



Sometimes people's hobbies (above) dominate the room.



Am I imagining it, or are living rooms dwindling in significance these days? Nowadays living rooms are often showcase rooms and the real action takes place elsewhere, in the rec rooms and kitchens. Some people have even converted their living rooms into offices. 


Some living rooms are absurdly small now.



On the other hand, kitchens have grown enormously. They're cozy, social spaces now.  The kitchens shown above and below belonged to the sculptor, Alexander Calder.



This wall in Calder's kitchen looks like it's hewn out of rock, but I'll bet it's plaster or stucco.




Eames, the designer, favored the austere living room shown above. You can't get much more minimal than that. I think Steve Job's house was like this.



Here's (above) another view of the same room. The sofa is pushed out of the way by a big, wooden slab. I guess Eames liked slabs.



Most hippies had little use for living rooms. Sometimes they didn't even furnish them. For hippies, the important thing was the bedroom, and above all, the sacred water bed.



The exception was rich hippie futurists who were partial to fuzzy living rooms with soft, rounded edges. 



Come to think of it, hippie musicians liked living rooms, too. The rooms were dimly lit and had lots of funny furnishings. 



The last living room I saw and liked was the one in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam." It recently played on the Turner channel. It was funky, but seemed like the kind of place where memorable events would happen.




17 comments:

  1. I would say shot three is necessarily decorating without a license, as much as decoration without a budget. Many many people have been there, or at least passed through it.

    When I think of a home built from scratch I sometimes lean modernist, just because I think it might provide something simple and easy to care for. For instance, bare wood floors, or high traffic commercial carpet, if any carpet at all.

    But what I generally LIKE to see, is something a Hollywood set decorator may have put together in the thirties. If there are a lot of objects to clutter up a room there is at least a lot of proper storage for same.

    Back to photo 3, that may be the new minimalism, as people have fewer books, recordings, paintings, that media is being replaced by computers and TVs. But with that possibly portable minimalism, comes cords, for power and connection.

    Oh, and there probably is a deficit of taste involved as well, not just money. Check those clothes.

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  2. Living rooms tell alot about people. Their lives, hobbies, tastes, etc.

    My dad, for example, was a collector of Indian artifacts. It's all over the main living room, on shelves, tables, etc. There's a pot over here, turquoise jewelry over there, and so on.

    I don't really have a living room per se (since I still live at home), but my bedroom has original comic strip arts covering the wall, my computer room has tons of cartoon DVDs (both old 'toons and new), and my TV has about a dozen VHS with cartoons laying around. I guess people can assume that I'm a toonhead based on all that.

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  3. man, where did you find that fourth picture? those le corbusier sculptures are cool!

    also, play it again sam is one of my favorite woody movies. i especially love the scene you have screen captured. his physical acting in that scene is perfect.

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  4. corbusier?! what am i talking about? i meant brancusi. oops.

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  5. Hey! Great shots. You should see my living room here in NYC. Love your blog. Off topic here, but I thought you'd like to see a video of three young lasses moving as close to cartoon impossibilty as possible:
    http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=141961

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  6. The Eames livingroom actually looks pretty cosy with it's warm colors, natural materials, big seventies plants, and various nic-nacs.

    It's not cluttered, but i wouldn't call it minimal. Infact it's a big, beautiful space with lot's of details. I would love a living room like that.

    I guess the only real difference between the Eames living room, and the room in picture 2 is the style. They seem based on the same principles. The only striking difference between them is the fact that twenties room is centered around the fire place, where the seventies living room is focussed on the big window.

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  7. My dream home would be designed by Ken Adam.

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  8. Oh, no Eddie... the real question is is: What if artists designed living rooms?

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  9. The "hippie musician" living room, with the Jeep statue and the Mark Ryden painting, is the old living room of Long Gone John (former owner of Sympathy Records). His entire house was covered from wall to wall with toys and expensive art..and a huge fireplace with gargoyles carved into it! I went there just before he moved up to Washington. The place was amazing!

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  10. Off topic here, but I thought you'd like to see a video of three young lasses moving as close to cartoon impossibilty as possible: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=141961

    Whoa! I fell in love three times.

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  11. I deficit both money and taste and suffer for it.

    I like the couch in that hippie living room. It looks comfortable and has nothing to do with anything.

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  12. I have to agree, living rooms with lots of beautiful, natural light are the nicest.

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  13. Grandfather clocks and Moose Heads are about equally useless. Maybe somoeone could combine them into one. A stuffed bear holding a tree with a pendulum clock in the trunk.

    It is very interesting how the Grandfather clock shown fits into the decor, it fits in very well. Looks a bit more like a GrandMother Clock, though, and definitely a 20th century take.

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  14. I like cozy living rooms, not wide open, gigantic ones. It has a friendly, warm feel to it for me to be comfortable. I also like privacy so I'm not a big fan of wide open windows everywhere. My neighbors live way too close for that.

    I always think a living room should be the most used room in the home besides the bedroom...so I like to make it as inviting as possible, not just dramatic and showy for the sake of theatrics.

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  15. I see on dozens and dozens of blogs glimpses of the most fun and beautiful rooms imaginable. To me this is a new golden age of appealing, interesting and individual design in home living. For artists, anyway.
    It gives me hope for the next generation, growing up in houses like the ones I cite.

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  16. Craig: Oops! My fault! I got it right this time! A great video!

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  17. Anonymous11:32 PM

    Just popping in to say nice site.

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