{design} – Page 270 – { feuilleton }

New coins

The coins of the realm receive a very welcome makeover following a design competition by the Royal Mint. The winning design by Matthew Dent is a surprisingly contemporary choice for such a staid institution. Although the Royal Arms shield is very traditional, the act of breaking it into pieces across the smaller coins is a clever move which makes the individual coins seem strikingly contemporary when only a small part of the design is visible. I’m looking forward to seeing these once they go into circulation.

Continue reading “New coins”

Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams

Globe terrestre.

More exposition mania. The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 would have been more grand/fabulous/excessive (delete as appropriate) if architect Louis Bonnier had been given free reign. The building above was intended to stand before the Palais du Trocadéro and house a huge globe which visitors could peruse from surrounding galleries. Bonnier also designed a series of kiosks (below) for different exhibitors which look more like over-sized Art Nouveau ornaments than pieces of architecture.

Three of these pictures are scanned from a book; the only site I found with examples of Bonnier’s work was this one which unfortunately spoils the pictures with enormous watermarks.

Exposition kiosks.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Maison Lavirotte
• The Palais du Trocadéro

Red by Guillemots

Red, the second album by the wonderful Guillemots is released today with a striking cover image that seems rather familiar.

left: The Listening Room (1958) by René Magritte.
right: The Wrestler’s Tomb (1961) by René Magritte.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Guillemots

Meggendorfer’s Blatter

Meggendorfer’s Blatter, Meggendorfer’s Journal, a satirical magazine founded in 1886 by Lothar Meggendorfer. As with Punch and other humorous magazines of the era, much of the humour is lost today (even more so in a foreign tongue) but there’s some fine and stylish illustration on display.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• George Du Maurier’s Christmas Dream
• “Weirdsley Daubery”: Beardsley and Punch
• Simplicissimus

The Maison Lavirotte

More Art Nouveau and more Paris…. I can’t believe I missed this place when I was in Paris for a week, staying just a few streets away. The building is at 29 Avenue Rapp in the 7th arrondissement and I crossed that street several times when walking to the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower.

The architect was Jules Lavirotte (1864–1929) and the building was named after him following its construction in 1901. His other works aren’t as excessively florid as this, nor do they display the Nouveau elegance of contemporaries such as Hector Guimard, so this façade may owe more to the capitulations of fashion than innate style. The attractively unclad figures on the pediment cock their hips at passers-by in a provocative manner that would never be allowed in British architecture of the period, and the door has some great details with stylised peacocks between the windows and a huge brass lizard for the handle.

Continue reading “The Maison Lavirotte”