Calling red “the color of creation”, Frank Lloyd Wright proposed that the Guggenheim Museum be constructed with red marble walls, long slim pottery red bricks, and weathered green copper banding.
Frank Lloyd Wright was known for using a brownish red he called Cherokee Red
Cherokee Red was not one exact color but a whole range of reddish hues made with iron oxide, some dark and some more vivid.
Cherokee Red harmonizes interior rooms with the natural colors of brick and wood.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature Cherokee Red concrete floors extend beyond the walls and become steps and outdoor decks.
The materials of the Usonian house were to be recognized as nature’s own: wood, stone, or baked clay in the form of bricks, and glass curtain walls, clerestories, and casement windows sheltered under overhanging soffits.
Built in 1924 for Charles Ennis and his wife Mabel, the Ennis House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built by his son, architect Lloyd Wright.
The house is the last and largest of four “textile block” houses in Los Angeles area, which feature patterned and perforated concrete blocks that give a unique textural appearance to both their exteriors and interiors. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a custom pattern for each of the houses built with concrete blocks.
The concrete was a combination of gravel, granite and sand from the site, mixed with water and then hand cast in aluminum molds to create a block 16 inches wide, 16 inches tall and 3 1/2 inches thick.
It was an experiment in the functional and artistic possibilities of concrete, which was still considered a new material, especially for home construction. The phrase “textile block” came from the way vertical and horizontal steel rods were woven through channels in the concrete to keep the blocks knitted together and held in position.
“One gets to experience the changes of light throughout the day and how that impacts interior spaces on a large scale. By walking a few feet, one can be in a completely different environment.”
“My grandfather designed homes to be occupied by people. His homes are works of art. He created the space, but the space becomes a creative force and uplifts when it is lived in every day.” Eric Lloyd Wright
By the time he designed the Ennis house in 1923, Frank Lloyd Wright had lived and worked in Tokyo and built several houses in Los Angeles. He was more cosmopolitan and less afraid of sunlight. The Ennis House is monumental with double and triple height rooms.
Between 1909 and 1959, Wright designed a total of 38 structures up and down the West Coast, from Seattle to Southern California. These include the Marin County Civic Center and Hollyhock House in Los Angeles.
The chance discovery of a mosaic 18 inches below the surface led to the discovery of one of the largest Roman Villas ever found in the UK, similar in size to the great Roman villa at Chedworth.
The villa, which had around 20 to 25 rooms on the ground floor alone, was built between 175 AD and 220 AD, and repeatedly remodelled right up until the mid 4th century.
Simon Sebag Montefiore, one of Britain’s leading historians said: “This remarkable Roman villa, with its baths and mosaics uncovered by chance, is a large, important and very exciting discovery that reveals so much about the luxurious lifestyle of a rich Romano British family at the height of the empire.
“It is an amazing thought that so much has survived almost two millennia.”
An artist’s impression of how the site would have looked
“This site has not been touched since its collapse 1400 years ago and, as such, is of enormous importance. Without question, this is a hugely valuable site in terms of research, with incredible potential.
“The discovery of such an elaborate and extraordinarily well preserved villa, undamaged by agriculture for over 1500 years, is unparalleled in recent years. Overall, the excellent preservation, large scale and complexity of this site present a unique opportunity to understand Roman and post-Roman Britain.”
An ancient Breton myth of an island, which sank into the sea and rose out of the water on clear mornings, inspired this prelude by Claude Debussy.
Ian Barton Stewart plays this prelude with a selection of his paintings connected with water and the sea, which he has chosen to resonate with the music.
Bringing together older people and hen keeping to combat loneliness and improve wellbeing.
“At any age you need to feel like you are contributing and feel valued.”
HenPower aims to:
◾Empower older people to build positive relationships through hen-keeping with improved wellbeing, reduced loneliness and reduced depression
◾Help care settings offer relationship centred care meeting older people’s needs and embrace ‘living with care’ as opposed to ‘caring for’
◾Create lasting change by supporting older people in care settings to get involved with schools, festivals and community events
◾Support Resident and Relative Committees within care settings to be aspirational and provide meaningful activities which embrace creative ageing
◾Provide social care staff with excellent skill transfer and professional development opportunities.
Equal Arts, a leading creative ageing charity providing arts and creative activities for older people.
Equal Arts was founded 30 years ago to bring music, painting and other art forms into the lives of elderly people.
A mural by Indigenous Australian artist Emily Kngwarreye has been hung in the dining room at The Lodge.
A huge mural by Indigenous artist Emily Kngwarreye dominates the formal room, and is sure to be a talking point at many official dinners. Bright pink and orange brushstrokes steal the scene upon entry to the room.
Mrs Turnbull has broken with tradition in the dining room, hanging many bold contemporary artworks selected from the National Gallery’s collection.
Mrs Turnbull said it was important for the art in The Lodge to “express Australia through its whole history”.
“I was very keen that it expressed lots of different thoughts and strains and aspirations and different ways of showing what a great country we are.”
Pieces by Indigenous artists Paddy Bedford and Rover Thomas grace the formal sitting rooms.
The work of many female Australian artists adorn the walls, including Margaret Preston, Ethel Carrick and Rosalie Gascoigne.
There are plenty of iconic pieces including an Arthur Streeton landscape of Queensland’s Magnetic Island, which has been on display in The Lodge for many years.
Russell Drysdale and Arthur Boyd works make an appearance in rooms used to entertain guests and there is a Sidney Nolan in the Prime Minister’s study.
Lucy Turnbull brings brought bold, contemporary Australian art into The Lodge, brightening up the Prime Ministerial residence.
The Lodge was built in 1927. The 40 room residence has housed Prime Ministers and their families for 89 years. It is not grand, but is a beautiful house with a rich history.
The Lodge in Canberra is situated within 1.8 hectares of grounds and is traditionally the principal residence of the Prime Minister of Australia.
The Lodge was built by Australian craftsmen using local materials to a design by architect J S Taylor of Glebe, Sydney. The plan incorporated a site with lawns, flowers, fruit and vegetable gardens, orchards, a tennis court and a croquet lawn. The decoration and furnishing was under the supervision of interior designer Ruth Lane-Poole.
The Australiana Fund recognizes the importance of representing not only Australia’s historic traditions, but also our modern culture. Examples of this can be seen in several commissions by contemporary artists and craftspeople. Among the artworks on loan to The Lodge by The Australiana Fund, there are objects with Prime Ministerial and historic provenance such as an earthenware jug resembling Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and Sir Henry Parkes’ campaign secretaire.
A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see in the same aspect as the things of the Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do, with great artists; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.
Marcel Proust developed many themes, including the enigma of memory and the necessity of reflection, in his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu, published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. In Search of Lost Time was earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past.
Proust’s father, Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, studying cholera in Europe and Asia. He was the author of numerous articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust’s mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family from Alsace. Literate and well read, she demonstrates a well developed sense of humour in her letters, and her command of English was sufficient to help with her son’s translations of John Ruskin.
