Diamond in the Rough
by Ken Avery
Moving to Portland, Oregon in 2007 was the beginning of a new
life rich with opportunities for discovery and growth. St. Johns suspension bridgePeninsula Park, Portland’s original rose gardenOn east side of the river in Portland lies a vast network of
very pedestrian friendly, tree lined residential streets. Thro...
04/19/17
Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake
by Carl Baker
When
Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau cured his Tuberculosis by
spending as much time as possible outdoors in the environs of Saranac Lake NY,
his prescription for a cure (complete bed-rest while simultaneously breathing
fresh mountain air) led to a new building type. The architectural fashions of
the day were modifi...
10/19/17
Off the Grid: William Wurster's Steep Ravine Cabins
by Carl Baker
Last week we were lucky enough to spend a night
at Steep Ravine cabins, the humble yet perfectly sited shelters designed by
William Wurster in the 1940s just above Stinson Beach in Marin. Since the Park Service took ownership of them
in the 70's, the cabins have hosted a
nearly continuous stream of 'campers' wh...
02/11/16
Angkor Wat
by Arturo V. Bárcenas
While travelling through Southeast Asia, I visited one of the most imposing and archaeologically significant sites in the world. Angkor Wat, as the complex is known, is the world’s largest religious monument, covering an area of about 154 square miles near the town of Siem Reap in Cambodia. Its main structures were built ...
06/05/14
I like painting with watercolors.
by Joel Barkley
My first summer in college I studied landscape architecture in Italy. I learned how to watercolor by spending an entire day sitting in one spot in a garden: Villa Gamberaia, Villa Petraia, Bomarzo…—no food, no wine, just painting with a block of smelly Fabriano cotton paper, three little tubes of paint, and ...
12/08/16
I’ve Looked at Parks from Both Sides Now…
by Joel Barkley
from east and west, and still somehow, it's parks'
illusions I recall. I really don't know parks... at all.I am presently working on two apartments that overlook Manhattan's Central Park. One is on the East Side and one is on the West Side. Every Wednesday, I traverse the park from one side to the other for construction m...
02/25/16
Sign here, Michael Graves
by Joel Barkley
I blossomed early, and was told at age six that I should become an architect. I moonlighted in high school designing house additions, then got an undergraduate degree in architecture.The portfolio that eventually got me into Princeton in 1991, where Michael Graves had taught the introductory graduate design studio sin...
03/16/15
Mies' Last Building
by Joel Barkley
Mies. The last building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stands in vibrant downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The American Life Insurance Building's story echoes that of Mies' Seagram Building a decade earlier in that it also came about by way of a daughter's suggestion. It is an oft-told story, Phyllis Lam...
11/19/14
The Barbican Sink
by Joel Barkley
If a television set mated with a urinal, what would it look like?I first saw this sink in World of Interiors back in 2005 or so. That magazine always has an old world strangeness that this particular sink totally embodies. It is set up like a 1960's TV, with hot and cold arranged in VHF/UHF fashion, and the reces...
10/07/14
Where the Boys Are
by Joel Barkley
My first time in Fort Lauderdale was in the hot, lonely off season of August 1987. A twenty year old with a free weekend, I was expecting “Where the Boys Are” with Connie Francis. The 1960 film was glamorous spring break nirvana, with lots of frugging teenagers. I didn’t find it, nearly three decades after they f...
08/27/14
For Your Memorial Day Reading
by Joel Barkley
I was quoted on outdoor kitchens in this month's Architectural Digest. Sometimes you don't even want see it from the outside! Here's one of our outdoor kitchens, from Architectural Digest's June 2011 issue. Trust us, it's there, tucked behind the white stucco form at left. Happy Memorial Day - now fire up the...
05/23/14
Book Report: Las Casas del Pedregal: 1947-1968
by Joel Barkley
Today I will be reporting on Las Casas del Pedregal: 1947-1968. A brief report—I haven’t actually read it, as I can’t read Spanish—but never mind. It is the most hauntingly, beautifully sublime compilation of modernist images I’ve seen since middle school, when the miraculously stylized film strip vers...
02/28/14
One from the Shoe Box
by Joel Barkley
I found an old box of construction photos of a favorite project from about 15 years back. I think the images are so good they should see the light of day. As with all projects, I started with a watercolor for our first client meeting. (The above watercolor was painted by me in the olden days and not created by a m...
02/05/14
The Real Thing
by Joel Barkley
Tiles from Heath Ceramics always surprise me with their perfect balance of variation and consistency, clarity and mystery, depth and surface. They are always showing just enough hand to be handmade but free of forced "artistry." They are serious.They are still made in their bohemian Sausalito, California, factory, the same ...
01/15/14
Camelbacks of Portland
by Joel Barkley
Our idea.We're very excited about being part of the recently announced 21st Century Shotgun Project in Louisville, Kentucky. We are designing a small, affordable, and green infill house to contribute to the revitalization of Portland, a riverside neighborhood in the west end of the city. Many of the vern...
11/08/13
How Modern My Marina
by Joel Barkley
National Geographic, June 1967.It was the memory of a picture from my grandmother's saved 1967 National Geographic that brought me to Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City; couples embracing in a modern balcony dance, the lights of Chicago twinkling off to flat infinity. At the time of their construction in 1963, the twin ...
10/09/13
Backyard Safari
by Joel Barkley
Rutgers TomatoesI have a big flower and vegetable garden this summer, so not much travel for me. It's been fun following friends' vacations on my new favorite, Instagram, while I weed, dirty. Here are some of the pictures I've taken:Sedum Autumn JoyMarigoldZinniaSunflowerFaunaI'm not photographing poignant architectural det...
08/28/13
Molly Denver on a Different Kind of Summer Break
by Joel Barkley
his guest post was written by Molly Denver, architect at Ike Kligerman Barkley. I’ve always wanted to be an architect, and feel incredibly lucky that I get to do what I love. It is for this reason that, about seven years ago, I decided to find a way to give back, and began leading international teams with Habitat for...
08/14/13
Five Things I've Learned from Interior Designers
by Joel Barkley
1. Alexa Hampton: Good art goes with anything.Ike Kligerman Barkley and Alexa Hampton in Architectural Digest's "A Sophisticated Connecticut Home." Photo by Durston Saylor.Look at the picture above! It works!2. Paul Wiseman: Never decorate with tile.Paul Wiseman's own house in Veranda's "California Dreaming." I’ve le...
07/31/13
I've looked at piers from both sides now
by Joel Barkley
Job sites can be brimming (or rife) with serendipity.IKB project architect Andy Urbany surveys the scene.Just yesterday, at one of our fledgling houses, I upset the proud mason by paying more attention to the backside of his tapered fieldstone pier than to the front of it. It brought Frank Lloyd Wright's (see post last week...
07/10/13
Our American Architect for the 4th of July
by Joel Barkley
I've always liked and thought about houses, and in elementary school I wanted to be a "house builder." In spite of weekends making my parents take me to construction sites, my teachers and friends all seemed to point me toward architecture instead. Maybe because I drew all the time, or because I wasn't handy.I was a vernacu...
07/03/13
Little Houses
by Joel Barkley
I grew up in very small houses. As a child I daydreamed constantly about larger houses, inventing elaborate mansions in my brain. Occasionally I'd try out a grand scheme and draw one of them up. Once I even told my fourth grade teacher the fib that my family planned to build one of them.At work, I do sort of the ...
06/13/13
Horace Gifford
by Joel Barkley
This past fall, John Ike mentioned Horace Gifford - a little known architect who designed beautiful modern beach houses on Fire Island. Christopher Rawlins, who, like me, is an alumnus of both Georgia Tech and Princeton, has recently written a much-needed book on Gifford. “Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Arc...
05/17/13
Floor Patterns and Floor Plans
by Joel Barkley
Service lavatory floor, McGraw Hill Building, New York CityI’ve been taking pictures of random ashlar floor patterns.I like their pinwheel effect, their centrifugal energy on the floor suggests an infinite possibility of directions.Ground Level Floor, New Orleans Athletic ClubPiet Mondrian's Composition with Gray and Ligh...
03/27/13
"Does Lacroix do Kitchens?"
by Joel Barkley
There’s an episode of the 1990s British television comedy “Absolutely Fabulous” in which Edina Monsoon’s kitchen burns. She needs to rebuild it, and after pleading aloud the title of this entry, she has a design epiphany.She and best friend Patsy spontaneously hop on the Concorde to steal, or at least photograph, a ...
03/06/13
Spanish Wells
by Joel Barkley
Nicky Haslam and I are up to something. Like most designers and architects we both love to design and rarely stop doing it, or at least thinking about it. On a beach vacation in Barbados over New Years, we interrupted the flow of glamorous luncheons and parties with Nicky’s friends to do some work dev...
01/22/13
I like painting with watercolors.
by Joel Barkley
My first summer in college I studied landscape architecture in Italy. I learned how to watercolor by spending an entire day sitting in one spot in a garden: Villa Gamberaia, Villa Petraia, Bomarzo…—no food, no wine, just painting with a block of smelly Fabriano cotton paper, three little tubes of paint, and ...
01/02/13
Shaping Up
by Joel Barkley
Vertiginous breakfast room: framing underway for a new house. We can start to feel the spaces inside and out.Skinny stacked porches Street frontThermal opening in board-formed concreteHybrid steel and woodLong gallery view with shoring...
11/14/12
Inspiration in Shropshire
by Joel Barkley
From left: Joel Barkley; Birch Coffey; Tim Knox - Director, Sir John Soane's Museum; Chas A. Miller - Executive Director, Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation; and Stefano Aluffi-Pentini - Director, A Private View of Italy Last month I joined a group of fellow architecture lovers on a trip to Shropshire. The Sir John So...
10/12/12
Lifting a Brick House
by Joel Barkley
Last week I went down south to observe the raising of an 1820 brick house. It lies in a floodplain, and the safer height will prepare both the house and us for the significant renovation we're about to undertake.I've lifted a wooden house before, but this was my first solid masonry structure. Edwards Moving and Rigging...
09/20/12
Town then Country
by Joel Barkley
When Philip Johnson died in 2005, the New York Chapter of the AIA requested reminiscences about him for their online journal eOculus. These were mine:I was twice a guest of Philip Johnson. The first time, I schemed my way into his office in the Lipstick (now Madoff) Building to show him the thesis project I'd just com...
08/29/12
My Soddy
by Joel Barkley
Two happy years of my awkward youth were spent attending Soddy-Daisy Junior High School, near the town of Soddy, Tennessee, a beautiful place nestled between Walden's Ridge and the Tennessee River, just up the road from Daisy. I've heard that Soddy's funny name came from "soddies", which are clammy turf huts. Wh...
08/08/12
The Pentagon and Indian Pinks
by Joel Barkley
Last year when we landed a project on the north shore of Long Island, I thought I'd try a new shape. It was May, high garden season, and while thinking about the floor plan and layout, I was inspired by wildflowers. These bright red Indian Pinks, which I'd bought a year earlier at Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve nea...
07/18/12
Workmanlike Kitchens
by Joel Barkley
Next time you watch Rosemary's Baby, note some product placement: in Mia Farrow's Dakota apartment lurks the same red and orange cookbook that bewitched me and bedeviled my mother, the Life Picture Cookbook (below.) Mom didn't cook from it, but complained about always stepping over it. The book never stay...
06/27/12
"Get My Good Side."
by Joel Barkley
As in portraiture, three-quarter views of houses can be flattering.My friend and collaborator Todd Klein (Todd Klein Inc.) shares a liking of the Chief Vann House in Chatsworth, Georgia. I saw it for the first time this weekend. Todd pointed out to me the wonderful asymmetry of the garden front.Top image: From the angl...
06/06/12
Turquoise
by Joel Barkley
No trips to Morocco for me. A knee injury has kept me close to home and feeling very blue. And the hue of this color that transports my brain temporally is turquoise. When I was young in Tennessee, the 1960’s building of my high school had faded turquoise spandrel panels. They were to me the embodi...
05/21/12
Tribeca Loft
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
When our clients, a couple with a young daughter, purchased
this loft in a former warehouse in Manhattan’s Tribeca district, it was a
50-by-80-foot box, evincing traditional details—steel beams, cast-iron columns,
an exposed-joist ceiling—and a subsequently added foot-deep concrete floor. The
brief was si...
12/15/16
Jethro Coffin House Reimagined
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
A group of NYSID students
designed two rooms in the Jethro
Coffin House, the oldest house on Nantucket,
for Nantucket by Design, a festival of design taking place this week, organized by the Nantucket
Historical Association. The house was built in 1686 as a wedding gift to Jethro Coffin and ...
08/10/16
A Week in Nantucket
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
This week we were invited to speak at the Nantucket By Design luncheon benefiting the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA). Celebrating creative design across many fields and disciplines the week of events, formerly the August Antiques Show and the Antiques & Design Show of Nantucket, builds on 38 years of histo...
08/04/16
Vive La France!
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
In honor of Bastille Day, we celebrate two important French architects that continue to inspire us today: Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Auguste Perret. Claude-Nicolas LedouxA fashionable architect in the 18th century, Ledoux began his career designing private houses in the Neoclassical style for the upper echelon of ...
07/14/16
A Mood of Sunny Summers Past
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
"Summer sky, summer sea, summer breeze - a house built to savor them all" An enticing title for the cover story of the July 1968 issue of House Beautiful, written by Editor Elizabeth Sverbeyeff. This week we took a look back at summer houses buried in our precious collection of design magazines from the late ...
06/30/16
May The Fourth Be With You
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
In case you missed it, this Wednesday was May 4th - an important Internationally-celebrated holiday: Star Wars Day. The holiday's moniker was first used by British Conservatives in a Newspaper ad celebrating Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. The message read "May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulation...
05/05/16
Purple Rain
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
Today is a sad day.This morning it was announced that the artist formerly known as Prince passed away in his home at age 57. In honor of this creative genius who had a particular affinity for the color purple we've pulled together some of our favorite purple rooms. #PrinceForever.James Turrell, Breathing Light.Dan Fla...
04/21/16
Light it Up: Exploring the Urban Electric Co. Workshop in Charleston
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
We took our 2016 Strategic Planning Retreat to the architectural gem that is Charleston, South Carolina. In addition to its rich history, delectable low-country cuisine, and exquisite beauty, Charleston is also home to the bespoke "bench-made" lighting fixture company, Urban Electric Co., that graciously hosted a day of lea...
01/20/16
Looking Back at 2014
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
2014 has been a fun and busy year at Ike Kligerman Barkley.We've had the privilege to continue working with the best craftspeople, clients and collaborators we know - and feel grateful that we've met so many more this year! Looking back at a great 2014 and forward to a fantastic 2015:New projects, small and large, near and ...
12/31/14
Stanford White Award: The Black and White House
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
We're thrilled to announce that Ike Kligerman Barkley has received a 2014 Stanford White Award! The Black and White House is recognized in the Residential Category, for new buildings over 5000 square feet. This house drew on English and Swedish country precedents, specifically details from the 18th century home of...
11/13/14
Ike Kligerman Barkley's Favorite NYC Buildings - Part II
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
There are nearly as many favorite buildings in New York as there are people who love them. Here are Ike Kligerman Barkley's favorite structures in Gotham, Part II. (Check out Part I!)The Metropolitan Museum of Art always seems to evolve and grow. Since its first days as a Ruskin Gothic structure to its now internation...
10/10/14
Ike Kligerman Barkley Celebrates Oktoberfest
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
This past weekend the staff of Ike Kligerman Barkley celebrated the annual fall picnic by marking Oktoberfest at the Pilsener Haus Biergarten. Employees came by plane (at least the San Francisco staff), train, boat and bus to mark another year at Ike Kligerman Barkley. There were plenty of familiar faces, a few new babies t...
10/01/14
Celebrating the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show with Carlton Hobbs and Ike Kligerman Barkley
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
This past Tuesday evening, we were honored to host, along with Carlton Hobbs, a party celebrating the upcoming San Francisco Fall Antiques Show. It was a glittering night at the Carlton Hobbs townhouse, showing support for an excellent show that benefits an excellent cause - the Enterprise for High School Students. We ...
09/12/14
Ike Kligerman Barkley's Favorite NYC Buildings - Part I
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
Five boroughs, thousands of blocks, millions of people. We're lucky to be headquartered in a metropolis that continues to change and continues to inspire - especially architecturally. This week, we asked the Ike Kligerman Barkley staff about their favorite buildings in New York City. From the offbeat to the classic, the new...
07/31/14
The Inaugural Julia Morgan Awards
by Ike Kligerman Barkley
Last night, Ike Kligerman Barkley was recognized with the inaugural Julia Morgan Award from the ICAA-Northern California Chapter in the Commercial, Civic and Institutional Architecture category for the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building at Stanford University. A glamorous crowd descended on the spectacular Carolands for ...
06/13/14
More than a Reading Room
by Rachel C.
With the Industrial Revolution (literally) gaining speed throughout the US and Europe, the mid-1800s ushered in a new era of architectural expectation, design, and construction. French architect Henri Labrouste embraced the technical and architectural questions of this era and essentially redefined modern architecture ...
04/27/17
Serafina Agriturismo
by Joe Carline
800 feet above the Gulf of Salerno in the town
of Furore, Italy, sits Serafina
Agriturismo, a stunning family run farm and Inn. Farmhouse Serafina began
as a working farm with a side business of catering to hungry trekkers looking for
lunch. It is now a full B&B and agricultural tourism destination.Once you find...
10/26/17
Cedar, that's a wrap!
by Joe Carline
In our office, we get excited about cedar. There is no better material to blend a building into its landscape. Whether for a grand estate or humble barn, cedar can adapt to the occasion. Not only are cedar shingles beautiful and versatile, they are simple to produce, naturally rot and insect resistant, requir...
04/13/17
Walls Will Talk
by Joe Carline
Architectural
concrete, specifically board-formed, has solidified as a central tenet of Pacific Northwest modernism. A niche industry has sprouted around
it and endless products and techniques are now available to make the walls say
precisely what we want.Embarking
on our first major concrete project in the home of ...
03/31/16
Chelsea Flower Market
by Patricia Cassidy
Lately,
I find myself shopping for flowers at the Chelsea
Flower Market for various reasons. Between photo shoots, events at the
office, and putting the final touches on a home, I am constantly shopping and
styling new arrangements. I often find myself browsing at the flower market, looking for the best that the sea...
02/22/18
Sheila Hicks: dedicated to experimentation
by Patricia Cassidy
If you attended The Salon at the Park Avenue Armory this
past November, it was hard to miss the works of Sheila Hicks brought to you by
Demisch Danant Gallery. The Salon at the Park Avenue Armory, Sheila Hicks.Textile Fresco, c. 1969Five panels formed from twisted skeins of linen, silk, cotton118.11 H x 133.86...
02/16/17
A Solo Sojourn to Spain
by Patricia Cassidy
This trip happened on a whim, looking for a summer retreat, I booked a ticket to Spain. Spain seemed to fit all my requirements. A country celebrated for its rich history of art and architecture, food and siestas, before I knew it I was on my way.I started my trip in Madrid. Where I spent most of my time hopping f...
07/20/16
Beyond the Dunes: My Trip to the United Arab Emirates
by Patricia Cassidy
Recently, I was invited to a friend’s wedding in Dubai. This
would be my first trip to the Middle East, and I wasn’t sure what to expect
upon my arrival. I had a feeling my nights would be filled with traditional
Pakistani events, but wasn’t sure if I would have time to explore the city in
general.The Emirates...
01/14/16
Sublime Acts of Poetic Imagination – Two Projects of Luis Barragán
by Alex Colucci
In his 1980 Pritzker
Architecture Prize acceptance speech, Luis Barragán said: “It is alarming that
publications devoted to architecture have banished from their pages the words
Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of
Serenity, Silence, Intimacy and Amazement.” He we...
04/19/18
Habitat 67 – A Case for City Living
by Doug Crisp
On Memorial Day weekend, I found myself on the beautiful
island of Montreal.
A major reason for my visit was to see Moshe Safdie’s 'Habitat
67', an iconic and experimental housing complex created for the World
Exposition of 1967.Amazingly,
the project was originally conceived by Safdie as his thesis project at M...
06/07/18
Australian Modernism – Robin Boyd and My Grandparents’ ‘Peninsula I’ Home
by Doug Crisp
Recently
I had the pleasure of participating in some architectural detective work,
located on the other side of the globe in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia.The
Robin Boyd Foundation, which represents
one of Australia’s greatest architects, was compiling an exhibition and map database of
his work for display...
01/18/18
Brutalist Paris
by Doug Crisp
On
a recent trip to Paris I decided I would attempt to see some of the lesser
known (and perhaps less respected) architectural landmarks. Most of these
buildings were social housing complexes located on the outskirts of the city in areas that weren't exactly on the 'must-see' Paris list.I
had read about these comple...
07/13/17
Le Corbusier Pilgrimage
by Doug Crisp
During the
late summer of 2016 I took an architectural pilgrimage of sorts, tracing some
of the pivotal works of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. 15th century chateau in Trélissac.Noted as one of the founding fathers of Modernist architecture, Corbusier’s works were in startling opposition to the popula...
02/09/17
How About A Little Solidarity?!
by Drew Davis
Louis
Kahn is a great architect. See past blog
post. What’s more, there is a recently completed project by the late Louis Kahn right here in NYC. On
the southern tip of Roosevelt Island stands the FDR Four Freedoms Park
commemorating a speech given by FDR to Congress and the American people in
1941.&nb...
11/15/18
Down the Rabbit Hole
by Molly Denver
Social
Media has some amazing vehicles that allow us to communicate and learn, from
connecting to someone you went to high school with on Facebook to sharing
photos on Instagram with your boss (Shout-out to Tom Kligerman who keeps Instagram
hopping with amazing photos!)Enter, Pinterest. I
don’t recall how ...
09/20/18
Verre Eglomisé
by Molly Denver
Sometimes when you work in this business, you come across a
product or an idea that you really want an opportunity to use in a
project. You can't force it- you just have to bide your time until the
right client and project come along. A few years ago, I discovered Verre
Eglomisé.Verre Eglomisé is the p...
05/17/18
Lunch-n-Learns
by Molly Denver
One
of my roles here at Ike Kligerman Barkley is to set up educational
opportunities. In addition to just wanting to learn and needing to stay abreast
of developments in our field, those of us with architectural licenses have a
continuing education requirement for every license we hold. Additionally, those of us tha...
01/25/18
Practice, Practice, Practice!
by Molly Denver
This
past weekend marked an exciting event in my family. My sister-in-law, Stacy, sang at Carnegie
Hall with the Monmouth Civic Chorus. They
performed Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Sitting
in the great hall, I could not help closing my eyes and wishing I could be
transported into the past. Am...
11/22/17
Welcome to the Dollhouse
by Molly Denver
Ever
since I was a little girl, I’ve had a fascination with dollhouses. My dad built one for my sister and I which I
recall being yellow, with graffiti that I personally contributed. The dolls
didn’t matter to me, just the house itself.Dad
built all the furniture and helped me build some, showing me how to...
09/21/17
Putting the Cart Behind the Horse
by Molly Denver
A few years ago, we got a book for Christmas, "Journeys of a
Lifetime" put out by National Geographic.
Whenever we leaf through, we find ourselves feeling an acute
wanderlust. We decided to experience one
of those journeys firsthand by renting a horse and caravan in Wicklow County,
Ireland.The idea of ...
06/29/17
Garret Room
by Molly Denver
At Christmas this year, my husband and I found ourselves
hosting 10 family members in our small house, so we had to create more bedrooms
in a hurry. We decided to take on the
attic. I couldn’t find a proper “before”
picture, but this is it in its early stages.First, we put down plywood over the flo...
06/14/17
Chicken Coops
by Molly Denver
Spring is here and I’ve added a new task to my already
rather long To-Do list. I need to build a chicken coop. I have some good friends who run Snowdance Farm in
Livingston Manor, NY, and they told us that they rent out chickens for the
summer to people who want to raise chickens but not to commit to deali...
05/03/17
A House in the Country
by Molly Denver
It
began as a lark. Every
weekend, my husband Brewster and I would pack the dog into our car and head out
wherever our whims took us within a few hours of the city. The idea morphed, and
we decided to focus these weekend jaunts to find a second home. Historic photo of our new farm, 1930.Historic photo of o...
03/22/17
Beaux Arts Ball
by Molly Denver
During my years studying at Notre Dame, the School of Architecture was known for a yearly themed costume ball. It was called Beaux Arts Ball. The tradition of the Beaux Arts Ball began at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in the 19th century. It was an opportunity for students and locals to debauch, wearing costumes...
08/25/16
The White City
by Dora Dmitriev
When
visiting Israel over the holidays, I finally went on the Tel Aviv Bauhaus
Tour. Tel Aviv is home to more Bauhaus buildings than any other city
in the world. Dizengoff CircleAn easy self-guided walking tour takes you through several
streets in Tel Aviv that display some of the 4,000 buildings built in the B...
01/24/19
Glenstone Museum
by Dora Dmitriev
Growing up in a suburb of Washington D.C., my family and I would
always head into the city to visit museums. Little did I know, barely a 10
minute drive from my childhood home stands The
Glenstone. The name "Glenstone" is derived from Glen Road, where the
property line begins and after the stone native to the area. ...
11/29/18
The Barnes Foundation
by Dora Dmitriev
This
month I took a quick weekend trip to Philadelphia. Having been to most of the
museums in Philly before, I finally got a chance to visit the Barnes Foundation
- that came highly recommended.Reflecting pool at The Barnes Foundation entranceThe
Art Museum relocated from Merion, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia in 2012...
10/18/18
Lviv, Ukraine
by Dora Dmitriev
When planning to visit relatives in Ukraine, I was
constantly reminded to make sure I fit in a visit to Lviv during my trip. After
several days in Kiev, I took an 8 hour train to Lviv which ended up being one
of the most uniquely beautiful places I had ever seen in Europe. Although just
a train ride away from Kiev, ...
07/19/18
Dansaekhwa
by Dora Dmitriev
Through
my search for Asian design inspiration for a project, I stumbled upon the word Dansaekhwa. Dansaekhwa or "monochrome painting" is debatably the most important Korean art movement of the 20th
century.Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue, by Yun Hyongkeun, 1978,
Oil on linenUntitled 72-C, 1972, Tina Kim GalleryThe...
05/10/18
The Noguchi Museum
by Dora Dmitriev
Located in Long Island City, Queens, the Noguchi Museum displays the
sculptures, furniture, and lighting designs of Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Over
his lifetime, he created a wide variety of pieces experimenting with steel,
marble, iron, stone, wood, paper, and water. One of the most influential
sculptors and design...
03/29/18
Randyland
by Dora Dmitriev
Over
the holiday break I took a trip to Pittsburgh, PA to visit my friend. The
freezing temperatures made exploring Pittsburgh unpleasant, so we tried to stay
indoors as much as possible. However, one outdoor attraction made bearing the
cold worthwhile. Hug Robot at Randyland entranceWithin
an average looking...
01/04/18
Hassan II Mosque
by Dora Dmitriev
Before
visiting Morocco last month, I had a very hard time deciding which cities to
visit in just a week. Everything I read hinted that Casablanca was one of the
more disappointing cities to see in Morocco as its name (associated with the
award-winning 1942 movie) carried a lot of weight and romanticized the city.
...
12/14/17
Jardin Majorelle
by Dora Dmitriev
As
you turn onto the Rue Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech, Morocco, you hear many
different languages coming from the line of tourists waiting to enter the Jardin Majorelle. The famous garden
was started in 1923 when artist Jacques Majorelle bought
a four-acre plot of land on the border of a palm grove. Eventually Ma...
11/30/17
Modern Memphis Movement
by Dora Dmitriev
In
1981 Memphis Milano or The Modern Memphis Movement began in Milan. A group of
designers led by Ettore
Sottsass gathered to start a revolution against serious and functional
modernist design. The group was named after Bob Dylan’s song "Stuck Inside of
Mobile With the Memphis Blues" as it was believed that they...
11/02/17
Maze Man
by Dora Dmitriev
With crisper, more fall-like weather upon us,
one starts to think of all the great fall activities to enjoy. A popular
activity that comes to mind are corn mazes. Mazes are an entertaining form of
recreation. They ultimately give us the same feeling we had from childhood
games-they bring about our curiosity and...
10/12/17
Mechelen Patershof Hotel
by Dora Dmitriev
Built by the
Franciscan monks in 1867, the "Paterskirk" in Mechelen,
Belgium looks like an
ordinary church- which is what I thought it was prior to entering. As I walked
in I was greeted by a doorman ready to take my suitcase.Street view of Martin's PatershofIn 2009 the
Paterskirk church opened as a 4-star hotel k...
08/17/17
The New York Earth Room
by Dora Dmitriev
In a highly desired 3,600 square foot Soho loft
with pristine white walls and large windows, lies 280,000 pounds of dirt. The
22-inch-high layer of dirt is 40 years old and is The
New York Earth Room, an interior earth
sculpture by American artist Walter De Maria. This is the third Earth
Room sculpture execut...
07/27/17
Grassmayr Bell Foundry
by Dora Dmitriev
Since 1599 the Grassmayr Bell Foundry in Innsbruck, Austria
has been casting bronze bells ranging from small concert bells to iconic church
bells weighing several tons. The Grassmayr family has carried on the bell
making craft for 14 generations. This year the foundry set another record with
the 25-ton bell nickname...
06/21/17
Art of the In-Between
by Dora Dmitriev
On view at The Met until September 4th is the “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” exhibit. Although best to avoid on rainy weekends, this exhibit is worth a visit for its architectural design and most notably its fashion. Past/Present/Future (above) Birth/Marriage/Death (Below)The ...
05/23/17
A Parisian Hidden Gem: The Sainte-Chapelle
by Dora Dmitriev
In the heart of Paris, France stands a small Gothic chapel
with a humble exterior but a truly breathtaking interior. The Sainte-Chapelle (“Holy Chapel”) was built in the 13th
century by Pierre de Montreuil for Louis IX to use as his royal chapel and to
house relics of the Passion. The Lower Chapel served...
03/01/17
Savannah, Georgia
by Andrew Dolan
I recently traveled down to Savannah, Georgia to help a
friend relocate and, to be honest, I didn’t expect to love Savannah as much as
I did. It’s a quaint, quintessentially southern town that hosts a vast range of
architectural styles and a rich history. Of this vast range of architectural
styles, you can find ...
10/11/18
Mid Century Modern in Los Angeles
by Andrew Dolan
At
the end of January, I had the pleasure of going to visit one of my favorite
cities, which in my opinion, gets a bad reputation. I love Los Angeles for
several reasons, one of which is its diverse topography. Los Angeles consists
of a massive desert sprawl of often bizarre and random architecture, fertile
hills ...
03/22/18
Darwin D. Martin House
by Andrew Dolan
The
Darwin D. Martin House; Buffalo, NYAs
a young American child aspiring to one day design homes, I idolized Frank Lloyd
Wright. Of all his homes that I’ve toured, my favorite is his Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo,
NY. The first time I visited the house, the complex was abandoned and half the home
had been d...
10/05/17
Houseboats
by Andrew Dolan
In
the eighth grade, one of my childhood best friends and I made a pact that when
we each turned 25 we’d buy an old boat, convert it into a beautiful residence,
then sail it through the Panama Canal (not sure why there specifically) and
travel the world. At the ripe age of fifteen, I would have told you that there...
08/31/17
Home Conservatories
by Andrew Dolan
Today, clients look for a very diverse range of amenities in
their homes; fitness centers, wine cellars, home theatres, spas and even golf
simulators. Of all the things that clients tend to look for, a conservatory is
rarely on the top of the list, let alone on the list at all. Perhaps the idea
of a home conservator...
05/31/17
Clarity in Design
by Alexander R. Eng
Martial arts have and continues to be a great influence in
many aspects of my life. Throughout my childhood to now, I have been a student
of various systems. My interest is in
both the physicality of self-defense, as well as the mental and spiritual
discipline. For myself as a martial
artist and an arc...
04/05/18
Scouting Sinker Cypress
by Alexander R. Eng
There’s a lot more to being an architect than
drawing all day. One of the most
important parts of my job is sourcing materials for the design of a house. Materials give personality, character, and
texture to a home.This is where my story of scouting sinker
cypress comes in. At the turn of the 20t...
03/10/16
Museum of Civilization, Quebec City
by Zephyr Fang
Last month I spent a weekend in Old Quebec City. The town
was built by French settlers in the 17th century. They started from a strip of land under the
cliff along the St. Lawrence River, then moved to the top of the hill. Today,
this hill separates the towns into a lower town and upper town. Map of CanadaI
fo...
10/04/18
Berkshire County, Massachusetts
by Sara Frantz
Rolling Berkshire hills
as seen from Lee, Massachusetts (my hometown) Primarily known for its
rolling hills, the Berkshires are also known for the arts: Tanglewood,
James
Taylor, Clark Art
Institute, Norman
Rockwell and Jacob’s Pillow
to name a few. One of my absolute favorite art gems is Mass MOCA (Mas...
08/23/18
New York Botanical Holiday Train Show
by Sara Frantz
As a child, I spent many hours crafting fairy homes in the forest behind my house out of your basic fairy house building materials: moss, rocks, sticks, flowers, Elmer’s glue… Sara Frantz, 1999, age 10. Fairy home construction in Lee, MA. Paul Busse and his team at Applied Imagination have envisioned and brought to...
12/22/16
Happy Birthday Mr. President: A Tribute Trip to TJ
by Sara Frantz
Presidents, they're everywhere. If the election's got you down and you couldn’t snag tickets to see Hamilton the musical this weekend, this could provide just the right pinch of "kosher for a dinner party" politics.For those of you who have yet to visit our office, this bust of Jefferson sits fittingly in the ot...
04/14/16
Taliesin Nights
by Kendall Herman
If you know someone currently trying to make art in New York
City, you’ve likely heard of Marfa, Texas. Marfa is a small town in the
Chihuahua desert that has been gradually claimed by artist imports—New Yorkers
flocking to the community for inspiration and a chance to be part of a modern
art movement.On a recen...
01/05/17
Open Kitchen, Open Opportunity
by Kendall Herman
In the 1950s, the advent of the open-plan kitchen put women
at the very center of suburban home life. It was a time when suburban
homeownership was the American Dream, and the media propagated the woman’s role
as housewife. In our Nantucket House, the Kitchen opens up not only to the dining area but to the livi...
11/03/16
Life in Color: Discovering SF Architecture
by Kendall Herman
Born and bred on the East Coast, I have long been enamored of the brownstones of Boston and Brooklyn Heights. Their historical character and neighborhood charm have been, to me, unrivaled by even the most regal estates and sleek modern towers. But on a recent trip to San Francisco, the technicolor city streets tempted me aw...
09/08/16
Midtown Streetscapes: A Wishlist
by Kendall Herman
As the first signs of spring ripple throughout New York
City (and the infamously frigid office AC returns) I’m reminded of the importance of stepping
away from my desk and taking a moment to recharge outdoors. Unfortunately for
our office, and thousands of other companies located in midtown Manhattan, the surroundin...
03/17/16
A Tribute to Paul Revere Williams
by Samantha Herzog
In
honor of Black History Month, I wanted to pay a special tribute to architect
Paul Revere Williams. Beverly Hills Hotel ExteriorHis granddaughter Karen E. Hudson wrote Paul R. Williams, Architect; A Legacy of Style – a biography and survey of his work, and a favorite in our IKB library. Be...
02/02/17
The Chapel at Sea Ranch
by Samantha Herzog
Part of my job is help source inspiration for potential and upcoming projects. For most of our projects in California, my search leads me back to the Chapel at Sea Ranch.The full exterior of the Chapel at Sea Ranch.Built by Architect and Artist James Hubbel, the chapel took 9 months to construct, with the help of loca...
01/19/17
Architectural League x Ike Kligerman Barkley
by Samantha Herzog
On Friday, November 4th we had the honor of hosting the Architectural League at our office for their First Friday Happy Hour. The front of the event handout drawn by our Principal Architect Alex Eng.The event gave us an opportunity to look at our design process on finished houses, projects under construction and those ...
11/17/16
A Seat at the Table: At the Intersection of Fashion, Architecture and Art
by Samantha Herzog
On Friday, September 30th, Solange released a new album “A Seat at the Table”. With it came two music videos - Cranes in the Sky and Don't Touch My Hair. Frame by frame, watching these videos was like flipping through a
Rolodex of every designer I think is cool right now. The pink ...
10/04/16
Writing on the Wall
by Samantha Herzog
It all began with Cornbread.Cornbread in front of his famous tag. That was the tag of the very first graffiti writer, a high school student who began spray-painting his nickname all over Philadelphia in 1967 seeking the attention of a crush. TAKI 183, one of the most influential Graffiti artists, with his early ta...
05/25/16
Cheers: A Collection of Beautiful Bars
by Samantha Herzog
“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or
perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable:
intoxication.” Friedrich NietzscheIn the spirit of National Beer day, I'm offering up a *craft* list of my favorite bars - as much for the richness of their design as for their a...
04/07/16
Oktoberfest
by Fred Holland
In the heart of Oktoberfest, beer has been on the brain more than usual. I have always been a beer aficionado but I like to think my palate has progressed quite a bit since my fraternity days drinking Milwaukee's Best (which is not in fact Milwaukee's best) and Rolling Rock. I have also worked in the business of...
09/28/16
Pacific Northwest
by Yi Huang
For
those seeking an escape to the outdoors, the pacific northwest is an ideal
destination - well known for its beautiful coastline and vast forests of Douglas-fir,
cedar, and spruce trees. Within an
expanse of land stretching from Washington to northern California, plentiful
precipitation makes this region ...
10/25/18
China
by Yi Huang
One of my earliest memories as a toddler was being whisked
away on an airplane and reunited with my parents in a foreign country. All that I understood of my future home was
there would be a yard and lots of orange juice - that was enough to convince my
5-year-old self. I was too young to
remember much o...
04/26/18
The Pen is Mightier
by Yi Huang
Oftentimes in our office, we talk about the degree in which
our clients and consultants understand our drawings. We have clients/consultants that have
extensive experience in building/architecture and read drawings as well as the
architects who produce them. We also
work with people that will mistake our...
02/15/18
The Azores
by Yi Huang
Recently, I had the chance to
travel to the Azores,
a volcanic island chain located roughly 1,600 miles west of Lisbon, Portugal. Far away from the streets of continental
Portugal, the Azores felt like a snapshot of a time long past - a simpler
life. Although known more for its lush
greenery and yearlo...
11/16/17
It’s The Little Things – A Challenge
by Meredith Hutto
"It’s all about
the details." It’s something architects, artists, and designers say so frequently.
We spend plenty of time scrutinizing and repeatedly reviewing our work to make
sure we haven’t missed anything. If something is not right, we can feel it. We
go home and we dream about it. We can’t get it out o...
06/21/18
East End Family Compound
by John Ike
The medical injunction “first do no harm” can be as useful to architects as it is to doctors. In the case of this renovation and extension of a 1980s shingled Dutch gambrel residence on eastern Long Island, I believe it helped get us the job, as we were the first architects who didn’t recommend tearing the place down....
01/26/17
A House in the Catskills
by John Ike
I like limitations. When an old house sets the tone and you're forced to respond, magic can happen. Such was the case with this Catskills renovation, but really much more addition. Where do the old and new meet? See if you can figure it out. Massive stacked bluestone piers support the roof of the porch...
10/11/16
Have a Seat
by John Ike
There is no shortage of chairs in which to sit down in our office. Robed Buddhist, meditating in yoga position, thinks of a chair. New Yorker Cartoon by Larry HatWhile the office standard is the Knoll Aeron chair, Tom, Joel and I all have Eames. That is sort of the beginning.Our large conference room has Brno ch...
09/21/16
Yawn: Getting into bed with Italian Modern Design
by John Ike
Although Italians are well known for their ability to live stylish lives, drive stylish cars and wear stylish clothes, they are no slackers when it comes to sleep. Find below a few of our favorite Italian Designers and the beds they've designed:Luciano Frigerio Frigerio was born in 1928 in Desio, Italy. &nb...
07/07/16
Stopover in Helsinki
by John Ike
I bookended my trip to Japan with stopovers in Helsinki. Helsinki feels like everybody is on Ecstasy - between the midnight sun and the idyllic weather the entire city is transformed - you can't help but bask in it. Here are some of the architectural highlights from masters such as Eliel Saarinen and Alvar Aalto, ...
06/09/16
Living in a Lautner
by John Ike
It’s not often that you get to really test drive a piece of
architecture by one of the masters. Such
was the case a few weeks ago as I caught the tail end of the Palm Springs Modernism
show. Darren Bradley, a friend and
architectural photographer from San Diego was speaking at the show, and he recommen...
03/03/16
Latest Find: Chihuly Pendletons
by John Ike
I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner at my San Diego friends Marie Tartar and Steve Eilenberg. Steve and Marie are accomplished radiologists, but their true passion is travel which they document as strikingly gifted photographers (which you can see on their website Aperture Photo Arts). This renaissanc...
01/28/16
Modern Paradise: Honolulu's Mid-century Architecture
by John Ike
While in San Diego earlier this month, I dropped by Tiki
Oasis, a weekend-long celebration of Tiki culture - which was kind of like a Comic Con
for the over fifty set. My friend, the talented architectural photographer
Darren Bradley, was speaking on Honolulu’s modern architecture.His talk was one of an oddball asso...
08/26/15
Smooth Move: Tadelakt Plaster for Today
by John Ike
In our practice at Ike Kligerman Barkley, we reference
historical traditions while incorporating them into modern designs. This is at
the heart of what I love about architecture and design, the ability to call on the
past in a way that feels fresh and contemporary. I’ve recently become intrigued by the possibilities...
07/24/15
Love is in the Air
by John Ike
In the ongoing saga of my San Diego house I’m finally in the fun
stage. I’m working with Dave Hampton, a native San Diegan, who is incredibly knowledgeable about twentieth century San Diego artists and craftspeople, and is helping me acquire things that were created during that period. Completely...
07/09/15
The Big Picture
by John Ike
My daughter Sally recently sent me a photo she took with her GoPro, captured while snorkeling with a friend in Hawaii, where she goes to school. The shot was striking. I was again amazed by how much incredible photography is produced by rank photographers on a daily basis. It’s truly a revolution in photography ...
04/24/15
Documenting Architecture for People: Julius Shulman
by John Ike
I recently had my house in San
Diego photographed – I’m hoping to rent it out on VRBO (or Behomm, which I just
heard about recently) and needed some groovy pictures to show for it. I found a
local photographer named Darren Bradley to document it. He’s an architectural
photography buff, but does his photo work ...
02/27/15
Weaving Palmas de Iraka in Colombia
by John Ike
A short while ago, Joe Hakimian, of rug purveyor FJ Hakimian, was traveling in Colombia with a friend. While checking out a Bogota crafts fair, he stumbled across a series of beautiful baskets. They were woven out of Palmas de Iraka, which grow naturally along the banks of the Amazon and other tropical rivers in South ...
01/08/15
No Reservations, Hawaiian Style
by John Ike
Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations may have ended a couple years back, but I like to think I continue the legacy, without the camera crew, limitless budget and group of chef friends. We are similarly passionate about our dining: the man had as much gusto for fine restaurants as he did for the best hole-in-the-wall joint.B...
11/06/14
Fluff N' Stuff
by John Ike
As temperatures start to drop, some minds wander to the sweater season, warm drinks, fires in the hearth. But my mind wanders to cozy furniture. And there’s none cozier than the cuddly, droll designs of sheepskin, fur and fluff that came out in the mid-20th century. In the current Bruun Rasmussen auction there a...
09/25/14
Gone to Seed
by John Ike
As I tune up my San Diego house, the property has gone to seed. In spite of - or perhaps because of - my neglect, many of the existing hardy plants insist on prospering. Joel's harvestUnlike Joel’s garden out here, which he cares for and chronicles dutifully, mine is at the moment living by its own rules. I took som...
08/21/14
A Hot Tub for the Harbor
by John Ike
Work on my San Diego house is underway. It’s currently in an en plein air state, with all of its framing exposed, but I’m looking forward to the days I can relax, cook, and enjoy the Southern California breeze with a roof above my head. I recently chose the hot tub for the back porch. It will have its own small dec...
07/24/14
A Favorite Folly
by John Ike
Folly architecture is derived from the French word for ‘foolish.’ Follies aim to do what the fool was supposed to in royal courts – delight. Follies vary greatly in site, location, form, and décor, but they all value their decorative value a little more than their functional value. They’re fun. Multiple follie...
06/18/14
International Orange
by John Ike
Last weekend, I bought a gallon of paint the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. (Sherwin Williams makes it - they’re the bridge’s official paint supplier.)It’s known as “International Orange,” and it’s a great shade: iconic and attention-grabbing. It falls somewhere between Safety Orange and Fire Engine Red.When p...
04/22/14
Another from the Shoe Box
by John Ike
In the spirit of Joel’s shoe box archive, we blew the dust off a project from twenty years ago, the interior decoration of a grand old house in New Jersey.A ceramic display by Mongiardino.At the time I was enamored with Henri Samuel and Renzo Mongiardino, two icons of the past century. They both were experts at mixing gen...
03/07/14
Art for the Masses
by John Ike
Over the years, Keith York, who runs Modern San Diego, has introduced me to some of his mid-century buds in the region. The community is tight knit, and includes all sorts of artists, artisans, and owners of small companies native to California. It’s a group of people who live "mid-century," surrounded by works from the m...
02/13/14
Nice Bike
by John Ike
I was in San Diego last weekend, preparing for another polar vortex in New York by getting sun while I could. On Monday, I went to the beach in the morning to see the big surf generated from some distant storm.At Sunset Cliffs, I met a guy named Eric who was riding a moped he built. The design was simple and clea...
01/24/14
The Swedish way: Vackrare vardagsvaror
by John Ike
Several years ago, I was turned on to Swedish furniture from the 1920s by my friend Paul Jackson. He is the owner of Jacksons, a historical design gallery that opened thirty years ago in Stockholm, and three years ago in Berlin.I’ve made several trips to Sweden, and always include a stop in Stockholm, sometimes just to se...
12/17/13
AD 100
by John Ike
We're absolutely honored and thrilled to be included in this year's AD100. Check out the January 2014 issue of Architectural Digest for the full list!...
12/01/13
My Little Grass Shack - Well, Almost
by John Ike
Happiness is: A. Checking out chickens grazing on a vast lawn B. Watching the sun sinking slowly into the Pacific C. Sipping Kona Big Waves with my daughter D. Doing all of the above from the front porch of our adorable 19th century oceanfront cottageYou may have guessed it: D, all of the above. I realized it last week...
11/13/13
A Ponti Pilgrimage
by John Ike
Last week I again found myself out of town; but this trip I was much further from home, and I was much more prepared for my accommodations. I was in Naples (which I loved, from its tiny latterie to the huge, fascist post office) on a Sir John Soane’s Museum trip, but found a moment to steal away to pay homage to the exube...
10/17/13
Mastering the Art of Hotel Booking: Julia Morgan
by John Ike
Even when staying in a city I know well, I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants traveler. I've gotten to booking hotels on Hotel Tonight, an app that gets you cheap fares when you book late. In theory, it retains some of the serendipity and spontaneity of traveling. Mostly it just gets you a good deal. When visiting San...
09/19/13
When in Doubt - James Turrell
by John Ike
The other day, Joel Barkley and I were talking about the ins and outs of giving a project presentation. We joked that when you’re at a loss for something to say, just invoke the name “James Turrell.”The artist is everywhere these days: his massive installation at the Guggenheim in New York, his major retrospective at ...
07/24/13
Comfort Food in CA
by John Ike
Work on the West Coast has been bringing me to coastal California. Lately, when flying into the SFO, I find myself skipping a stop in San Francisco and driving right over the Bay Bridge into Oakland, arriving at the door of a soul food mecca just east of the 805. Brown Sugar Kitchen is run by Tanya Holland, a Connectic...
06/19/13
California Dreamin'
by John Ike
The warm weather has finally arrived to the East Coast. Privets are filling out in the Hamptons, gardens on several of our projects are starting to bloom, and the NYC humidity is making its glorious debut just in time for Memorial Day.Courtesy of T Magazine. The mass exodus to the outdoors we all do this time of year h...
05/24/13
Lei Day
by John Ike
It’s May 1st, hence “Lei Day” in the state of Hawaii. Last week, while having dinner in San Diego to celebrate the purchase of my new house in Point Loma, I got to telling brother-sister realtor team Suzanne Drace and Keith York (Modern San Diego) about my youngest daughter’s decision to attend the University of Haw...
05/01/13
Newton Bar
by John Ike
We’re not talking about the cakey cookie with fig filling, but rather the ultra chic Berlin bar named after Helmut Newton, the Berlin born photographer, whose erotic fetishistic black and white fashion photos for Vogue perfectly embody what you expect from Berlin.Last week, while visiting Berlin for the Leaders of Design ...
04/10/13
You Know It's a Great Project When...
by John Ike
… you’re fortunate enough to have a client and a team that’s interested in top quality metal work. We’re working on just such a project with the talented San Francisco design team headed by Jay Jeffers.Top quality metal work starts here, in the Historical Arts and Casting foundry. Right away we identified sever...
03/20/13
Kevin Wegner on New York's Best Kept Secret Garden
by John Ike
This week, good friend Kevin Wegner, Senior Associate Principal at Kohn Pederson Fox, guest blogs about a little garden tucked away on an unexpected island. - John IkeI never cease to be amazed by the number of design savvy New Yorkers I encounter who have absolutely no idea that one of the finest Chinese gardens outsi...
02/27/13
Vacation planning for 2014
by John Ike
It’s been cold the past couple of weeks and next year I want to make sure that I’m out of here. I want to go to Caracas. Although Havana would probably be a more sensible location if I’m looking for a little Latin Socialism mixed with an ample dose of decaying urbanity, there’s an allure to the lawlessness and isola...
01/30/13
Travel is great for inspiration.
by John Ike
Travel is great for inspiration, but movies and books can do the trick as well. This recent holiday crop of movies was particularly good. The most visually stunning was the Life of Pi. Whether or not the movie lived up to the book is debatable, but there is no denying the visual images set a new standard f...
01/09/13
Roland Terry
by John Ike
My current obsession is Roland Terry, Seattle architect and designer. He trained in a traditional Beaux Arts curriculum at the University of Washington in the 1930s and came of age in the new wave of Modernism sweeping the Northwest in the Forties. The work really resonates with me because of its stylistic diversity a...
11/28/12
Alys Beach
by John Ike
With the devastation of super storm Sandy fresh on everyone’s mind, I can’t help but appreciate the lessons we’ve learned during the small part we’ve played in the design of Alys Beach, a beautiful, yet virtually hurricane proof community built directly on the Emerald Coast of Florida’s panhandle. The entire...
11/02/12
Other London House Museums
by John Ike
Pardon me while I milk this recent London trip one more time. House museums played a prominent role in this visit. Tom, Joel and I attended the opening of the Sir John Soane's Museum Conservation Wing funded largely by IKB friends and clients, John and Cynthia Gunn. With a few hours in between festivities, I took time...
10/17/12
Fall Gardens Outside of London
by John Ike
Joel, Tom and I were all in London last week. Tom will elaborate in his next entry, but while there Tom, Kristin Kligerman and I rented a car and took the long way to Heathrow via the Kent and Sussex, southeast of London to check out a couple of notable gardens.Sissinghurst CastleThis garden is built on the ruins of a...
09/26/12
Patty's Cakes
by John Ike
As Fall approaches our summer interns will be returning to school. Patty Cassidy, who's been with us four summers, is incredible. She'll be a great Interior Designer one day, but one of the talents we'll miss most are her cakes. They're full of wit, humor and are just plain beautiful! Check them out and re...
09/05/12
Modern San Diego
by John Ike
One of my favorite websites is modernsandiego.com. The site is the brainchild of, Keith York, a native San Diegan, a former television producer, and a serious architectural buff. The site focuses on Mid Century architecture, and blends basic information and anecdotal stories with scholarship and great period pho...
08/15/12
Way Uptown
by John Ike
My daughter and her boyfriend are planning to return to New York from the West Coast for graduate school at Columbia in the fall, and have begun to search for an apartment. Things are different from when I moved to New York in 1976 to attend Columbia Architecture School. My girlfriend (now wife) and I walked door to door an...
07/25/12
Both Sides of the Bayou
by John Ike
I was in Houston recently for a party hosted by Luxe magazine at the Memorial Drive home of Larry Hokanson, custom carpet czar, and his partner, gifted interior designer Michael Siller. Two hundred and fifty chit chatting, cocktailing guests basked in Michael’s sumptuous interiors, which grace the cover of Lux...
07/03/12
Jules Wabbes
by John Ike
If you're in SoHo east of Broadway, before you head to Torrisi Italian Specialties at 250 Mulberry to sample their incomparable eggplant parmigiana, check out E.R. Butler Company, the hardware showroom at 55 Prince Street, just east of Lafayette. In addition to their impressive selection of hardware, their windows are curre...
06/13/12
The Blue Gatto
by John Ike
Is there an automotive equivalent to our houses? I’d like to think so.The Gatto story sure sounds familiar. A multi-year collaboration between enthusiast / owner Bill Grimsley and designer / builder Moal Coachworks to create a totally unique sports car that “bears the influence of great coach builders, but is deri...
05/21/12
Towards a Colorful and Colonial Architecture
by Luis Jasso
On my recent visit to my home country, Mexico for the
holidays, my family decided to go on a road trip. We departed from
Matamoros, the Northeastern tip of the country where I grew up to Guanajuato, a
city in central Mexico known for its silver mining and colonial architecture.
The trip should have taken 10.5 hours ...
02/07/19
The Poetic Conception of Home
by Luis Jasso
In the summer of 1968, Catalan sculptor Xavier
Corberó began his never-ending pursuit of creating a home.Situated in the Barcelona suburb of
Esplugues de Llobregat, he designed and built a 48,000 sf structure spreading
over nine interconnected buildings with more than a dozen courtyards, all
nestled among more than...
07/26/18
Pike Place
by Mia Jung
On a recent visit to a Seattle job site, I found
a few spare hours to explore the city. Per numerous suggestions, I went
downtown, to the Pike Place Market. Historic photo, North on
Pike Place Historic photo The Pike Place Market is one of the oldest continuously
operating farmers’ markets in the co...
04/05/17
TEFAF New York
by Mia Jung
This week I had the opportunity to go to the The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) at the Park Avenue Armory. Normally the fair is held in Maastricht, one of the oldest Dutch cities known for its medieval architecture, and draws up to 75,000 visitors. This year, TEFAF brings two spin off fairs to New York. The firs...
10/27/16
An Unlikely Pair: The Shingle Style meets South America
by Mia Jung
Four years ago I received an ominous voicemail: "I think you are the designer I've been looking for."The client asked me to visit his newly built home in suburban Boston. When I got there I was not surprised – it was a typical New England Shingle Style house – something we are known for at Ike Kligerman Barkl...
05/10/16
Dia : Beacon
by Kabir Karnani
This
past Spring I visited the Dia:Beacon located in Beacon, NY. A hidden treasure
box of modern art, it draws admirers of art and architecture to its remote
location. If you haven’t already been I highly recommend catching the Metro
North train one weekend and making the trip. The Dia:Beacon was originally a
Na...
08/16/18
Spiritual Pilgrimage to India
by Kabir Karnani
This
past December I visited India on a spiritual pilgrimage through some of the
holiest sites in Hinduism and Sikhism, the two religions practiced in my
family. Throughout my life as a teenager and into my twenties I always felt a
deeper connection to India and developed curiosities into my family’s history. Duri...
08/02/18
Parma's Teatro Farnese
by Thomas A. Kligerman
My recent trip to
Italy led me to the city of Parma, as I retraced portions of Sir
John Soane’s Grand Tour (1778-80)... He had two years to do it- I barely had two months! While I was in Parma, I came upon a massive and looming building at the edge of the Parma River. Nothing on its exterior prepared me for what ...
03/09/17
American Academy in Rome
by Thomas A. Kligerman
So I am heading to Rome. Looking up at the Pantheon to the 27 ft diameter oculus. The American Academy will be my home for the next six weeks where I will be a Visiting Scholar. The sabbatical will afford me the time to pursue a number of things besides time to reflect. Coffers in the dome of the Pantheon. T...
01/12/17
A Tale of Two Houses; London and Paris
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Humans invent things--it's just the way we are. We use new technologies all they time and they open up new possibilities and things we haven't considered before. Soane's house on Lincoln's Inn Fields. But sometimes our ideas outstrip available technology, and solutions to new ideas are found with previous ge...
11/30/16
Watch Hill Aerie
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Ever since I was ten years old, I have spent nearly every summer in a small oceanside town in New England. Set on a point of land that juts out into the Atlantic, it is dotted with simple shingle cottages, many built in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Despite the passage of time, those cottages have never l...
11/10/16
Kykuit
by Thomas A. Kligerman
After a summer of constantly being away or traveling for work, when Labor Day rolled around I decided to stay home and have a New York staycation. Kykuit as you arrive by carriage. The shallow steps at the porch are designed for easy exit from your horse drawn brougham.We visited places that had been on the bucket list...
09/15/16
New York Public Library
by Thomas A. Kligerman
As a follow up to my journal on the Boston Public Library by McKim Mead & White, today I stopped by the New York Public Library right in our own neighborhood on 42nd street. The New York Public Library from 5th Avenue.The two libraries have a lot in common. Both Beaux Arts Symmetrical buildings built around ...
08/31/16
Boston Public Library
by Thomas A. Kligerman
View of the Boston Public Library from across Copley Square. My back is to H.H. Richardson's Trinity Church... but that's another story. The other week I had the opportunity to spend a day in the Boston Public Library. I hadn't been there since I was an architecture student longer ago than I care to remember.The ...
08/18/16
Lighthouses
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Nantucket has been top of mind lately, as John Ike, Joel Barkley and I are heading out there Tuesday morning to take part in all the Nantucket by Design festivities. I grew up in New England and I love going to the island to see all the great buildings, in fact I've even be lucky enough to design some. Nantucket, ...
07/28/16
Wooden Boats Revisited
by Thomas A. Kligerman
They engage all five senses. Visually, of course—rare is the straight line on a boat. Surfaces dip and twist in multiple directions. The sheer (the curve of the deck along the length of the boat) and the way the hull falls away are ever-changing making these boats true sculpture—different from every an...
06/23/16
10 Days in Japan
by Thomas A. Kligerman
John and I just got back from an incredible trip to Japan with the Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation. View of a house sitting on a moat in the Palace Gardens in Tokyo.The focus was architecture, art and culture. Neon night--after dinner stroll in the Roppongi Hills neighborhood in Tokyo.We started in Tokyo,...
06/02/16
Villa Savoye
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Une maison est une machine-à-habiter. Le Corbusier famously said that houses were machines made for living. He wondered, why should houses look so traditional when we live in the Machine Age? His Villa Savoye is a stunning example of this philosophy.The villa was built in 1929, during an age ripe with innovation. Loc...
05/19/16
From the Library: An Architecture Book in time for Easter Weekend
by Thomas A. Kligerman
It’s so important to remember to look up. To me the most important part of a building is
the ceiling and there’s rarely been a book on ceilings as beautiful as David Stephenson’s
Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture published by Princeton
Architectural Press, 2005. Following his
firs...
03/24/16
A Cuban Moment
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Over the holiday break, I went on a Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation trip to Cuba with a dozen friends to look at art and architecture. Since my last visit four years ago, things have change subtly. The art scene is exploding, there are more restaurants and the food has improved. Apart from that, however, not much h...
01/07/16
A Shingle Style Pilgrimage in Newport: Stanford White's Isaac Bell House
by Thomas A. Kligerman
As an architect from the northeast who often designs in
the shingle style, I have long been fascinated with the shingle style homes
that dot New England towns. Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County. I’ve written before on The Journal about my fondness for these
residences, but there are so...
08/13/15
My Window with André: Working with André Leon Talley at Rizzoli
by Thomas A. Kligerman
I recently had the
opportunity to work side by side with the famous André Leon Talley,
while he was creating the inaugural window display for the new Rizzoli bookstore on Broadway at 26th Street, and I was wrapping up
the construction process at the space.As Talley notes in his article for Vogue, ...
08/03/15
Soane's Bank of England: Back from the Wrecking Ball
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Sir John Soane's Bank of England, Tivoli Corner.New Yorkers are acutely aware of the destruction of McKim
Mead & White's Pennsylvania Station. The loss of New York's grandest train station and arguably its most important classical building has forever altered the way the city conceives of its historic landmarks....
07/16/15
Ferries of Long Island
by Thomas A. Kligerman
The best way to arrive anywhere is by water. And luckily for
me, many of my projects are on the ocean or a beautiful lake. I have worked in the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Rhode Island not to mention Orcas Island, Cabo San Lucas and Maui. There are others but working on th...
06/19/15
Three Mesas
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Plateaus, tablelands, promontories. I grew up calling them mesas – the flat topped hills with steep ledges, set high above the rest of the landscape. A couple years in the Southwest solidified my interest in their strange forms, and as a kid who was fascinated by buildings, it helped that some of architecture’s oldest, ...
05/21/15
Women Master Builders, Part Two: Marjorie Merriweather Post's Mar-A-Lago
by Thomas A. Kligerman
My last post on women master builders featured Doris Duke's paradisical Honolulu retreat, Shangri La. Just over a decade before Duke began on her compound, another female patron was putting together her own estate lying nearly 5,000 miles east. - Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Palm Beach pile, Mar-A-Lago. Another exotic nam...
03/26/15
Penn Station: New York's Ultimate TBT
by Thomas A. Kligerman
The oft-told tale. In 1963 McKim Mead & White's great train station, rivaling (and copying) imperial Roman buildings, is torn down only to be replaced by a building that could most kindly be called banal. On this Thursday - another "throwback Thursday," if you will - I thought I would explore the story of the struc...
02/18/15
Costume Change: Dressing up a favorite Lutyens house
by Thomas A. Kligerman
This
past weekend I was in London. While walking back from a visit to the Sir John
Soane's Museum, I passed a small building by the great Edwardian architect,
Edwin Landseer Lutyens.(He was named for the painter and sculptor, Edwin
Landseer, who perhaps most famously sculpted the lions in Trafalgar Square.) The buil...
02/05/15
Guess who's coming to dinner (Or, some thoughts on Stanford White)
by Thomas A. Kligerman
You can have dinner with three famous people, dead or alive. Who would you choose? For as long as I can remember, I’ve answered that one of my guests would be Stanford White. White was an absolutely brilliant architect, delineator, artist; he was a designer-of-all-things, with seemingly infinite creativity. He was al...
12/11/14
Glass Houses: Conservatories Near and Far
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Madrid's Palacio de Cristal, of 1887. I’m currently working on a conservatory for one of my projects. It’s a fun thing to design, especially on the cold, dreary days that make you miss the sunny, verdant ones of summer. Conservatory design spread in the Victorian era, when parks and patrons commissi...
11/25/14
All that Glitters
by Thomas A. Kligerman
For a project to go well, an architect needs to understand a lot of different professions: contractor, lighting designer, interior decorator, mason, and more. But these last couple months I’ve found myself trying to understand a more unfamiliar role – Director. With another kind of "Director" - SFFAS Director Arian...
10/30/14
The Rainbow Room Lives On
by Thomas A. Kligerman
At the end of this month, the quintessentially New York Rainbow Room will open its doors again. (It closed in 2009 following the financial crisis.) Originally opening on October 3, 1934, it will be just a few days shy of its 80th birthday. There’s no place quite like it in the city. The space is glamorously Deco. The...
09/18/14
Behind the Scenes: An Architectural Photo Shoot
by Thomas A. Kligerman
So what goes on at a photoshoot? The short answer: a lot. I’ve been asked this question many times before, and now seems a good time to answer it in full, as we finish up shooting houses before the days get shorter and the leaves start to fall. From left to right, Aaron Binaco, Anita Sarsidi, Alyssa Urban, William Wa...
09/04/14
The Weekapaug Chapel
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Summers in Weekapaug start at the chapel. People congregate at the simple, white stucco building at the back of a slightly rolling lawn with typical New England coast boulders (erratics) popping through the grass. This first gathering of the season is the Blessing of the Fleet, a service centered on the sea. We assemb...
08/07/14
Frunk and Trunk: A Tale of the Tesla
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Google's driver-less car. (Really?)Mobility has always been a source of fascination to those looking toward the future. Walt Disney, designing the original EPCOT (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), had a monorail connecting all parts of the entertainment empire, along with the WEDWay PeopleMover, a sor...
07/10/14
Fire in Glasgow
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Last week, the iconic Glasgow School of Art in Scotland fell victim to a fire that started in the basement and leapt up to the glass atrium on the top floor.
The building was a landmark for designers, students, and the architecturally curious the world over – and luckily, it seems it will continue to be that. Ther...
05/29/14
Buenos Aires, Scotland: the Estancia Villa Maria
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Back in cold and rainy New York, it’s strange to think that only a couple days ago I was in sunny Buenos Aires for the annual Leaders of Design Council conference.But traveling North-South will do that to you. After an eleven hour flight, the timezone only changes one hour, but the season changes completely (and so does t...
04/30/14
Bungalow Heaven
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Walk around for a while in any American town, and you’ll probably find a bungalow. Or should I say you’ll probably find a bunch, clustered together, unassuming, petite. They’re a staple of American residential architecture that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately - partly because there are so many to think about!S...
03/21/14
Architect of City and Country, Skyscraper and Suburb
by Thomas A. Kligerman
It seems an Ike Kligerman Barkley tradition to think about Frank Lloyd Wright on National Holidays. I continued it this President’s Day by paying a short visit to the exhibition dedicated to – as Joel wrote on the Fourth of July – “Our American Architect.” “Frank Lloyd Wright and the City: Density vs. Disp...
02/19/14
Women Master Builders, Part I: Doris Duke and Shangri La
by Thomas A. Kligerman
The raw cold of this January has my mind straying to warmer climes (I'm not the only one). But as I jump between thoughts of Palm Beach and the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Aruba, I keep coming back to a white washed compound on a bluff overlooking the Pacific.Mughal suite with stairs leading to the Jai Pavilion.Shangri La, as ...
01/30/14
A Cozy Red House
by Thomas A. Kligerman
English architecture always seems to say “home” to me, no matter where it might be located. I get the feeling from small thatch roofed cottages and from Sir John Soane’s labrynthian townhouse – if only I could actually call that home. But perhaps the “homiest” feeling I get is from houses of the Arts and Crafts ...
01/02/14
All the Houses Fit to Print
by Thomas A. Kligerman
A sharpie, a sketchpad, and a wide array of magic markers; a compass and a computer (with CAD or Revit or Rhino); a good library, a good drafting table, good natural light. And generally a large cup of coffee.I’ve been thinking what’s in an architect’s “toolkit” these days, particularly after a visit to Columbia U...
11/20/13
For the Record
by Thomas A. Kligerman
The Ike Kligerman Barkley archive seeps out of all corners of our office, and beyond. Large plans are rolled up or stacked in flat files; hand rendered drawings are framed on walls; models in basswood, painted plastic, cardboard and plasticine adorn filing cabinets or open bookshelves. We also have a separate storage site t...
10/31/13
President by Day, Architect by Night
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Thomas Jefferson: great president, innovative thinker, fantastic writer, but last week, I was reminded just how good of an architect he was.I was struck by it time and time again while on a Leaders of Design Council trip to the rolling blue-green hills that surround Charlottesville, Virginia. Our group visited four of Jeffe...
10/03/13
No Guts, No Glory
by Thomas A. Kligerman
This guest post was written by Chris Lucas, architect at Ike Kligerman Barkley. No guts, no glory. It’s a common phrase in sports, but in the architecture world it takes on different meaning: the “glory” of a finished project would be nothing if not for its “guts” – the fundamental systems that lie behind a...
09/26/13
'Tis a Gift to Be Simple
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Last week, on a trip to Los Angeles with John Ike, John Toya, and Joel Barkley, I found a free moment to visit the Schindler Chace House in West Hollywood. The diminutive home sits on a geometrically terraced lot concealed from the street by a scrim of bamboo and flanked by recently built apartment blocks. This small, ...
09/11/13
Twin Gables: A Lifelong Obsession
by Thomas A. Kligerman
For years I've spent my summers in a small New England oceanfront town. It is dotted with simple shingle style cottages, many which were built before the turn of the last century. Since my first decade of life, they've remained prominent in my memory. I love so many of them, but I’m particularly obsessed with a select few...
08/07/13
In Deep (or Shallow) Water
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Water is the great human mesmerizer. Perhaps it’s because somewhere, a million generations back, our forebearers emerged from the ocean - or perhaps it's that we're in the middle of a heat wave. Either way, whether it’s the sight of a fountain, the roll of breakers on a beach, or the sound of a nearby stream, water hold...
07/17/13
A Quick Break for Le Corbusier
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Looks like Corbusier could have used a break from the office as well. There are a lot of things I like about this blog. I’ll admit - one of them is its ability to get me out of the office. “Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes,” the recently opened retrospective at MoMA of the Swiss modernist, then, was an...
06/27/13
Everything you always wanted to know about Citi Bike*
by Thomas A. Kligerman
*But were afraid to askAllow me to throw my hat into the cacophonous ring that is the launch of New York City’s bike share program, Citi Bike.To put it simply, I’m a huge fan. Never have I enjoyed going to the office so much - bringing my helmet from home and getting a bike from a docking station next to the train or pa...
06/06/13
On Sir John Soane
by Thomas A. Kligerman
A portrait of Sir John Soane hangs in the Museum's dining room. Courtesy Sir John Soane's Museum.Next Tuesday, May 14th, we’ll be celebrating the legacy of Sir John Soane at the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation’s annual gala. This year we’re honoring Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank OM, and the Museum of ...
05/08/13
A Rainy Day, and a Light-Filled Labrouste Exhibition
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Last week, I took a mid-afternoon trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see the long anticipated and highly praised exhibition Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light. Curated by Barry Bergdoll, it’s the the 19th century French architect’s first solo exhibition in the United States, and a deserved one at that.The hall...
04/24/13
Dispatch from Berlin: The Altes Museum
by Thomas A. Kligerman
John Ike and I are currently in Berlin, attending the Leaders of Design Council's annual conference. Between talks and site visits, I couldn't help but sneak in a couple hours at the Altes Museum, a building I consider to be one of Karl Friedrich Schinkel's greatest works. The structure, located on Berlin's Museum Island, w...
04/03/13
Giving Back
by Thomas A. Kligerman
One evening in late April, I found myself harmonizing alongside Keith and Chippy Irvine at the Sir John Soane Museum Gala. The iconic Rainbow Room was packed with men in tails and women in gowns as far as the eye could see.Together we warbled a rollicking tune Chippy had composed after a Cole Porter song. (It went something...
03/15/13
Model Seduction
by Thomas A. Kligerman
IKB's Rocky Mountain House in basswoodWhen visitors come to our office, they all stop to ponder the models on display. No matter how much time you’ve spent looking at them—as a first year architecture intern, a 30 year veteran, or a prospective client—a building in miniature, a model, is always seductive. Even a bad b...
02/06/13
Books: The IKB Library.
by Thomas A. Kligerman
One of life's greatest pleasures is being surrounded by books--the more, the better. At IKB, we have been building a library since we founded our office. A single shelf-full along the back wall of a tiny office shared by John Ike and me our first year in business, the library has grown steadily to thousands of volumes...
12/13/12
Barrier Free Is No Barrier to Design
by Thomas A. Kligerman
So, in early October, while at a Santa Fe, New Mexico conference hosted by the Leaders of Design Council, I injured my knee. Surgery followed and then crutches, a cane and now, twelve weeks of physical therapy. It has been tough to get around! Climbing stairs is a challenge—forget about going back down.&...
11/21/12
Dispatch from Santa Fe: The Elegant Adobe
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Despite my East Coast Brooks Brothers appearance I can eat the hottest red or green chili with the best of them, having spent my high school years living in New Mexico in the 1970s. Being a typical teen drag racing my hopped up ‘68 Dodge Charger RT on Albuquerque’s south side didn’t stop me from being drawn to t...
10/04/12
Architecture and The Art of Drawing
by Thomas A. Kligerman
What has happened to the art of drawing? The computer, a powerful, necessary and seductive tool in the design process, has taken over the way architects work much the way video games have enraptured kids who used to read or ride bicycles.Michael Graves’ New York Times September 2nd opinion piece on the importance of...
09/12/12
Martini Spoken Here
by Thomas A. Kligerman
—or nearly anywhere as far as I’m concerned. The simplest, noblest and most elegant of cocktails, the martini literally stands above all others—Fred Astaire among dancers. Allegedly invented in 1911 by Knickerbocker Hotel bartender Martini di Arma di Taggia, the martini has undergone refinement upon refine...
08/22/12
Wooden Boats
by Thomas A. Kligerman
They engage all five senses. Visually, of course—rare is the straight line on a boat. Surfaces dip and twist in multiple directions. The sheer (the curve of the deck along the length of the boat) and the way the hull falls away are ever-changing making these boats true sculpture—different from every an...
08/01/12
Good Eats
by Thomas A. Kligerman
Boiled peanuts, dark chocolate mousse cake and New England clam chowder are just some of the things you can grab while on a site visit to one of our projects. A satisfying benefit of working all across the US of A has nothing to do with architecture, but with ways to recharge by taking a few minutes for some great gru...
07/11/12
Shingle Style
by Thomas A. Kligerman
If someone held a gun to my head and said that I could only design in one style, it would be the Shingle Style. I love these gray, cedar-sheathed houses that populate America, especially those on the New England Coast. My first book on architecture (age 9) was Vincent Scully's Shingle Style and, in addition to s...
06/20/12
Stonework
by Thomas A. Kligerman
I am obsessed with stonework. The one trade that I completely drive nuts is the masons; "tear it out, start over..." They are miserable during construction but always pleased when the dust finally clears. To get the best results I constantly have them ask themselves that if there were no m...
06/01/12
Morocco Blue
by Thomas A. Kligerman
This April I spent six days with a group of architects, interior designers and other industry leaders visiting Morocco. A beautiful, complex country full of so many inspiring things. One of many threads weaving through much of what one sees: blue, from dusty, dark and worn to brilliant cobalt.From the top: Essaou...
05/21/12
The Integratron
by Margie Lavender
This past April on a visit to Los Angeles to celebrate my brother-in-law
Alexis’ birthday, we took a side trip to Joshua Tree, the national park in the Mojave
Desert with one particularly remarkable architectural and
experiential surprise attraction… The Integratron!The Integratron – 38 foot ...
07/12/18
Beekeeping
by Margie Lavender
I’ve long had a fascination with social insects, species that live in
colonies, manifest
group integration, division of
labor, and overlap of generations. It all started with the book The
Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration, an intriguing read
about the cooperation and communication ...
01/11/18
Manitoga
by Margie Lavender
Another day, another scintillating exploration of the Hudson Valley, this time to Manitoga, Russel Wright’s home and studio
built on the rock ledge of an old quarry. View of the Hudson from nearby Cold Spring. Reminds me of a Japanese
wood block print.Russel Wright was one of the best known designers of the ...
12/07/17
Total Eclipse Seeking in Missouri
by Margie Lavender
This summer I journeyed to middle America, in the path of
the total eclipse of the sun. A
longtime family friend who spends part of her summer each year at her family
home in Windsor, Missouri invited us to join her for the occasion. Both small
town Missouri and the celestial event greatly exceeded my expectations. ...
09/14/17
Catskills Escape and a Soiree on the Railway
by Margie Lavender
The first weekend of August, my husband and I celebrated our
6th wedding anniversary (and 14 years!) by escaping to the Catskills
for The
Soiree on the Railway put on by the charming And North collective. We made a
weekend of it, arriving at the Arts and Crafts style Deer Mountain Inn in Tannersville, NY Friday
ev...
08/08/17
Wood and Canvas Canoe DIYWH (with help)
by Margie Lavender
My husband, Morgen, and I bought a country house in
Northwestern Connecticut. I wanted to get a canoe, specifically a basic plastic
or Kevlar one that we didn’t have to be precious about – my husband is also an
architect and is meticulous and I didn’t want canoeing to be a stressful
experience. He asked a...
06/06/17
Off the Grid: Mohonk Mountain House
by Margie Lavender
There's a magical place right outside New York City. Lake Mohonk Mountain House. Albert Smiley purchased a small inn and 280 acres of land in 1869, and expanded on the historic resort hotel until 1910. It sits on the Shawangunk Ridge, on the western side of the Hudson River.Smiley continually expan...
04/28/16
If So, What?
by Louis Lin
Although IKB is mostly known for its work on private residences, we sometimes venture on projects of a much different nature. Last year, our Interiors department was corralled into partnership with a group of art enthusiasts with a mission to redefine the contemporary art scene in the digital age. IF SO, WHAT? is a hybrid o...
05/03/18
Animal and Architecture, Part I
by Louis Lin
For
a lot of us, pets are an inseparable part of our lives. Their existence is
integral to not only our daily routine but also our living space. For most
people, to make a space accommodate the needs of animals seems somewhat of
an indulgent idea. The difficulty partially lies in the paucity of information on
the ...
03/15/18
Using the Right Tool for the Job
by Eric Manahan
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” - Abraham MaslowWorking
at IKB I have been fortunate enough to have been given a wonderful arsenal of
tools at my disposal. AutoCAD for fine
details, Revit for comprehensive projects, Rhino for organic forms, and
Photoshop for last minute im...
09/06/18
Exploring Manhattan’s Village
by Philip Marcantonio
Six months ago, on a cold February day, I relocated from
Detroit to Manhattan. I rented an apartment with a friend from college in the
Upper East Side for a few months. Between searching for jobs, interviewing, and
seeing old faces, I took the time to explore this great city.I dedicated every afternoon to exploring di...
07/06/17
Multifaceted Manhattan
by Bailey Mcgrath
Manhattan seems both like a very small and very large
place to me. The density in terms of buildings and people in Manhattan makes
the time to travel one mile much greater than it would to go the same distance
in a suburban town. This allows this small island to have neighborhoods and
places with vastly different pe...
07/05/18
Boston’s Timeless Architecture
by Bailey Mcgrath
Having
grown up right outside of Boston, I’ve always understood that all of the
buildings around me are part of history, and some are the oldest architecture
in the country. A fair amount of the homes in my hometown have small
plaques next to their house number that read the years that they were built.
The entir...
05/24/18
La Sagrada Família
by Bailey Mcgrath
This past summer, I took a mini-grand tour of
Europe with some friends, our last stop was Barcelona. After having sat through
two semesters of Historical Styles in college, I was
eager to see all the architecture that I had learned about. My friends were
International Business and Sports Management majors, so I exci...
12/21/17
Lakeberry Retreat
by Jennifer Overton
Wild blueberries on the property inspired the name for our
cabin in the woods.This past winterIn 2012 my husband and I were looking for
a place to getaway on weekends and bring our two boys to connect with nature. We found this quaint cabin in the Pocono Mountains about two hours from our home in New York. S...
05/11/17
Home for the Holidays
by Ross Padluck
While scrolling through Instagram this December, I’ve come across some
inspiring photos of homes all decked out for the Christmas season. Here are
some of my favorites, in no particular order:Natural
evergreens, wreaths and pinecones dress up the classic entryway of this Portsmouth, New Hampshire home.Simple
...
12/20/18
Mimar Houses
by Ross Padluck
In
hand is a copy of MIMAR HOUSES,
printed in 1987, a beautifully illustrated journal of residential architecture
from the developing world. MIMAR was
co-founded by one of my former professors, the late Brian Brace Taylor, with
whom I studied 19th century sublime and 18th century
classical European landscape arc...
06/14/18
Collecting Glass Insulators
by Ross Padluck
I’ve
been collecting insulators for a very long time - enough to put together a
collection that has slowly taken over the house. Glass insulators were
developed in the nineteenth century to insulate electrical and telegraph wires
from poles.The Hemingray Glass Company produced the majority of North
American Insu...
03/08/18
Concrete Jungle
by Ross Padluck
Every
July, the climatic conditions in Midtown equate to those of the jungles of
Borneo, and my 8-year old Nepenthes pitcher plant begins its dramatic
process of producing new pitchers.A new pitcher at the base of the plant.Newly
forming pitchers on the upper vines.Nepenthes are a species of tropical carnivorous pla...
08/02/17
Amish Paradise
by Ross Padluck
October usually finds me on a visit to family in the quaint
and picturesque Lancaster County, Pennsylvania – affectionately known as Amish
Country. The beautiful countryside is dotted with farm stands bursting with
colorful and unique gourds, pumpkins and Amish specialties. What a way to
embrace the autumn season!...
10/20/16
Summer House Essentials
by Ross Padluck
With the height of the summer season upon us, summer Fridays conjure up thoughts and anticipation of an early escape from the city to a tranquil weekend retreat. Whether you’re heading out East this
summer, to the Vineyard or up to the Catskills, there are some key essentials to look for whether you're rentin...
06/16/16
Drayton Hall: Lowcountry Authenticity
by Ross Padluck
On a recent
trip to Charleston, we had the pleasure of adventuring out into the sublime South
Carolina Lowcountry to visit Drayton Hall Plantation. Completed in 1742,
the Palladian residence of John Drayton is nestled in amongst palmettos and
swamps on the west banks of the Ashley River. The three-story brick struct...
02/17/16
House Beautiful, 1968
by Ross Padluck
You never know what you are going to find when you are doing a renovation. We’re working on an addition to a client’s mid-century home on Long Island. In the process of clearing way for the work, our client came across a box of her late mother’s House Beautiful magazines from 1968. Knowing I’m an admirer of mid...
01/22/15
Lost Paradise
by Ross Padluck
Ross Padluck, Associate at Ike Kligerman Barkley, guest blogs this week. He is the author of Catskill Resorts: Lost Architecture of Paradise.I’ve long been fascinated by the beauty and mystery of abandoned buildings. They’ve become a hobby of mine, and I've photographed and written extensively about them. One place that...
03/28/14
Invisible Cities
by Kaycee Park
A friend
who understood my fondness for beautiful and strange descriptions once
recommended this book to me. It is popular with many artists and designers, and
I highly recommend it to anyone who has not read it. Invisible Cities,
by Italian writer Italo Calvino, was written in 1972, but it reads in a
timeless man...
08/30/18
French Interior Designers
by Margarita Rael
To
kick off 2019 feeling inspired, in this blog I have included 3 French interior
designers whose work we like to turn to for inspiration. All three are well known
for their attention to light, volumes and details, transforming the spaces they
work on to be contemporary and elegant.Pierre YovanovitchPierre Yovanovit...
01/10/19
Raymond Hood
by Robert Rohena
Walking by the lobby entrance to IKB’s office,
you would be hard pressed to find a single soul looking up from their cell
phone to take a second look at the building. The McGraw- Hill building
is located right next to Port Authority and is covered in scaffolding that
often serves as a hovel for the less fortunate ...
09/27/18
Louis Kahn: The Quintessential Architect
by Robert Rohena
Architecture
has always been a monumental statement. Architecture consumes energy and
resources on a global scale and continually pushes the boundaries of what is
physically possible. The product of all architectural endeavors leaves behind
traces of when they were made. This is most evident in the different
archi...
05/31/18
A Litany of Firsts
by Crosbie Roper
In an age of such great opportunity and advancement in the
field of architecture, it’s easy to forget those who blazed the trails and
cleared the path for us. So during Black History Month, I’d like to take a
moment to highlight the bold career of Norma Merrick Sklarek.San
Bernardino City Hall, San Bernardino, C...
02/23/17
March Material Madness
by Elizabeth Sesser
I thought I would take the opportunity to highlight a few
materials that we love for this week’s journal entry. As we are a part of so
many different styles of projects taking place all over the country, we are
always looking for new materials to enhance our spaces. These next three are
finds that we have been abl...
03/01/18
Architecture and Animals: A trip to South Africa
by Elizabeth Sesser
I recently took an incredible trip to visit the amazing
country of South Africa. We started our adventure with 4 days in Cape Town,
followed by 4 days in the Winelands, and ended with a 5-day safari in and
around Kruger National Park. Cape Town – A view from the trek up to the Cape of Good Hope
Lighthouse.Cap...
03/16/17
Inspired by the Vine: My Trip to Argentina
by Elizabeth Sesser
As many designers and architects will tell you,
traveling provides one of the best opportunities for inspiration and refreshing
creativity. The idea of taking something with you, from places or people you
experience and translating it into a project, is a tried and true formula. But there’s a reason it’s so ...
02/02/16
Linen!
by Elizabeth Sesser and Patricia Cassidy
Finally, we can feel summer in the air here in NYC. It’s
going to be 90 degrees today and although it’s a welcomed change, we
immediately start to think about how to stay cool. Winter wool sweaters are
sent to storage, because of course who has room for all seasons in their
apartment, and out comes… Linen!Line...
05/18/17
Unusual Encounters
by Ilana Simhon
The
most memorable part of a trip isn’t always the architectural monuments themselves,
but sometimes the inconsequential moments while in transit, or the seemingly
mundane details that a local might never rethink.In
Laos, it was the rest stop somewhere between Luang Brabang and Vang Vieng with toilets,
but mostl...
09/13/18
The New York Harbor
by Laura Smiros
The
New York
Harbor is an amazing place. We all
know millions have traveled through this harbor with twelve million immigrants
coming to Ellis
Island alone. Today we travel over, under, play on, work on, and live off this
remarkable and serene harbor. A quiet Saturday morning on the harborIt
is a si...
09/07/17
Relocating to NYC
by Laura Smiros
I recently had to decide where to live in NYC after living
on Long Island my whole life. There are
so many wonderful neighborhoods in NYC and all have a different vibe. We had a pied-à-terre on Central Park South for a few years, and
despite the pedigree, it wasn’t a comfortable neighborhood. It just never felt lik...
03/29/17
The International Style & Its Counterfeit
by Michael Stonikinis
Recently I’ve
noticed that the topic of Rome has come up in casual conversation with friends
and coworkers on more than a few occasions. Needing only to reflect briefly on
these circumstances, I soon came to the embarrassing realization that in almost
all instances I was the one responsible for raising the subject...
02/14/19
Living Across the Hudson
by Michael Stonikinis
A
family-owned pharmacy in HobokenA few years ago,
I read The Image of the City by Kevin
Lynch after I had just moved from Scranton, Pennsylvania (my hometown) to
Jersey City, New Jersey. I bought the book quite impulsively; at the time I had
a vague sort of interest in the topic of urbanism and I remembered being...
12/13/18
Introduction to the Wildland Urban Interface
by Tyler Velten
The
Landsat 8 satellite caught this image of the Camp Fire on Nov. 8. The town of
Chico can be seen in the lower left corner of the image. (Photo Credit
NASA/Joshua Stevens with Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey)California’s
fire season has finally come to a close leaving many communities reeling from
...
12/06/18
James R. Browning Building
by Tyler Velten
Last
May, the San Francisco studio took a break from our desks and traveled two
blocks north on Seventh Street to visit the James R.
Browning United States Court of Appeals Building, headquarters of the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals. Completed in 1905, the design supervised by Treasury
architect James Knox Taylor...
02/08/18
Recreational Residences
by Tyler Velten
As we pack our station wagons and stow the sunscreen, many Americans are heading to a forest for one final summer adventure. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that there are nearly 7.5 million second family homes in the U.S. Predictably, the highest concentration of these homes is situated in or ...
08/24/17
In the Land of the Bungalow
by Ashley Walton
On a recent trip to California, I had the chance to sneak in a
quick trip to one of America’s most influential houses- Charles and Henry Greene’s iconic "Ultimate Bungalow", the
Gamble House. By the mid-nineteenth
century, architects were beginning to turn away from the monumental, historic
styles of t...
11/08/18
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer
by Ashley Walton
This past weekend I wandered through Central Park to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a special exhibit I had been dying to see for
months- Michelangelo:
Divine Draftsman & Designer. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, or
more commonly known simply by his first name Michelangelo (1475-1564), wa...
02/01/18
Key West
by Ashley Walton
After the devastating effects of Hurricane Irma, it is great to hear that the Florida Keys will officially reopen to
tourists on Sunday October 1st. While
some areas still need more time to recover, the Keys are reopening 3 weeks
earlier than expected. I was very lucky to have experienced the Keys earlier this y...
09/28/17
Miami Art and Architecture
by Ashley Walton
Having studied architecture at the University of
Miami, I tend to find myself coming back to the area every so often...any chance
I get, really! This spring, I took a few days to escape down to explore a
little bit of Miami Beach and Wynwood.Miami Beach- Ocean
DriveWe started off the trip with a bike ride through
...
07/20/17
Nevelson Chapel
by Winnie Yen
Back
in October I visited the Chapel of the Good Shepard, also known as the Nevelson
Chapel. The chapel is located inside the
St. Peter’s Church, which is part of the Citigroup Center complex in Midtown
Manhattan. Commissioned by the church in
1975 and completed in 1977 by renowned sculptor Louise Ne...
01/17/19
Gropius House
by Winnie Yen
Last
month I visited the Gropius
House in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Walter
Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School in
Germany, designed the house as his family home when he came to teach at
Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. The house was completed in 1938. After Walter’s death in 1969, his wife Ise
don...
06/28/18
Free Space: The Venice Biennale of Architecture
by Anthony Zampolin
Entrance
to ArsenalCurated
by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the focus of the 2018
Venice Architectural Biennale is "Free
Space". The exhibition addresses "the question of space, the quality of
space, and open/free space" lending the theme and title "Free Space" to
this year’s displays.Collection of...
11/01/18
The Birth of Seismic Design : Ferrara Italy 1570
by Anthony Zampolin
Sunday November 16th
15709:30am – The first strong earthquake strikes outside of the
city, 600 pieces of stone masonry are documented to have fallen from the
perimeter battlements. The day is hampered with light tremors and small aftershocks8:00pm – The second strong quake hits the whole of Ferrara,
most of the ...
08/09/18