the Value of Beauty

Still Life by William Nicholson c. 1900

So what is beauty?  Every civilization has a different standard or ideal of what beauty is.  It is based on our history and our collective cultural experience.  Moreover, within each culture, our tastes, likes and dislikes are unique to who we are.  What I find beautiful, my wife or son may not.

As a designer, I find that one of the greatest challenges is to create beautiful objects, be they buildings, furnishings or graphic patterns that have a broad appeal and aesthetic longevity.   After all, isn't one of the greenest approaches to design and manufacturing to create things of enduring relevance?

I think it's important that we all pause to take stock of what we find beautiful.  Look around your home.  What objects have you cherished for more than a few years?  Is there a consistency to those things.  What about your community?  What are the structures that are preserved, restored or well maintained?

Detail of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling
by Michelangelo c. 1510

While beautiful things do not guarantee happiness, they add a texture of palpable vitality to our lives.  And yet as Alain de Botton notes in his book, The Architecture of Happiness, “To care deeply about a field that achieves so little, and yet consumes so many of our resources, forces us to admit to a disturbing, even degrading lack of aspiration.”  Yet given the seemingly folly character of aesthetics, we are driven to continuously appreciate, and even rival the beauty that nature surrounds us with. 

I’m not sure what constantly drives me to want to make beautiful things.  All I know is that I am driven.  I hope that the work I create is met with eyes that appreciate my personal interpretation of beauty, and derive pleasure in doing so..

Back to Nature

In this crazy fast-tracked life where we live, there is a strong movement from high-tech to soft-touch.  While the i-phone has become the de rigueur accessory for the average American, we yearn for the feel of natural materials with a palpable sense of life. 

Designers in all disciplines are tapping into more natural pallets to soften the edge of life.  My 15 year-old son recently purchased a “skin” for his i-phone that is made of bamboo veneer.  I own a pair of eye glasses with teak temples.  And I recently received a Fathers’ Day gift of a Wee Wood watch that my thoughtful wife found on Pinterest!

Natural materials are being rethought in the home as well.  Exquisite tiles are cut from hardwoods.  Vessel sinks are honed from solid blocks of stone.  

We at Ramsay Gourd Architects recently completed a restaurant design that acknowledges the region's rich history of quarrying marble.  There we back-lit locally sourced marble in order to highlight the materials natural characteristics.  

Portrait of a Client

 I’m often asked “Do you have a design style?”  I find that a tough question to answer, as my work is project specific and stylistically varied.  As an architect, illustrator and designer, my goal is to convey a message, evoke a feeling, and most often, paint a portrait of my client.  Few people hire a custom designer to create a project that looks just like their neighbor’s.

Whether designing a home, a room or a restaurant, my first objective is to get to know my client and understand his or her vision.  I send clients off from initial meetings with a homework assignment.  Our programming worksheets ask the clients a number of questions about the project in question.  Digital or tactile clippings files of inspirational images are requested so that clients can graphically communicate their tastes and preferences.

On the designer side of the equation, I like to take research field trips.  I will often schedule to visit my clients’ homes or explore similar program type precedents.  (I recently visited a couple in New Jersey to better understand their personal tastes as I prepared to design their Vermont home.  And a tour of New York brasseries armed me with a vocabulary to pursue a recent restaurant project.)

 

In the end, every project I design should be a clear reflection of the owner.  Infused in its fiber, needs to be a DNA as unique as a fingerprint.  That core thesis in turn, informs every decision about the project, such that each detail supports the whole, creating an end product that is about its built, temporal and personal context.

Food for Thought

Computer Model View of Dining Room and Open Kitchen

 For over a year, I have had the pleasure of working with a passionate couple who are following their dreams to Vermont.  Michel Boyer and Beth Whitaker packed up their stable urban life to move to the country and open a Provence-inspired Brasserie.  Michel has spent his life in the hospitality industry, most recently as manager of Brasserie 8 1/2 in New York.  Trained as a graphic artist, Beth has developed her hand as a fine oil-painter.  This husband and wife duo combines their creative energy with experience in the business of hospitality.

Michel labored over the restaurant's name.  He wanted something clearly French, pronouncable by the great American un-washed, and reflects the sense of place he envisioned. Brasserie L'Oustau de Provence sums that up for him.  For those of you, like me, who have no idea what that means, the following definition should shed a little light.

Oustau  (oo – sto’), -noun  1. an ancient Roman agricultural homestead structure found in the South of France, often occupied by landowner, farm workers, and their extended families, serving as the heart of community. 

Working with Steven and Lauren Bryant, who helped to locate and evaluate potential properties, we seriously studied two other sites before selecting the building at 1716 Depot Street in Manchester.  The property was a going concern, but had little to do with the concept or menu of what was to become Brasserie L'Oustau.  What it did have were high ceilings, an open kitchen and an antique bar that oddly enough was perfect for our vision.

I took a field trip to New York and attended the annual hotel and restaurant show there.  While in the city, I met with Michel, and he took me on a whirlwind tour of the best brasserie spaces that Manhattan has to offer.    Balthazar, with its cool vibe and great sense of place has the recipe well worked out.  The architecture and details at Brasserie Ruhlmann are exceptional.  But what would would you expect from a restaurant named after the great Art Deco designer Emile-Jaques Ruhlmann?  Artisinal Bistro on 32nd and Park combines the brasserie dining experience with an exceptional fromagerie that purveys some of the finest hand-crafted cheeses available in the city.

Massive Columns,  brass-capped banquettes and
carefully selected lighting combine with a custom mosaic
floor to create a true brasserie environment.

Armed with this vision and sense of experience, we attacked the plans with enthusiasm.  (I had also just read Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, which re-lit my hospitality sense from my years as an innkeeper.)  The thesis was clear.  The concept concrete.  And the scope of worked pre-defined.  We set out taking down walls to create the open feel and dynamic flow.  I designed a custom mosaic tile to paint the floors with, and detailed massive columns that are iconic elements of our brasserie precedents.


We are not yet two months into the project, and as the tile is laid, the space is really coming together.  Lighting will be installed next week and furniture arrives as staff training takes place the following week.  A soft opening will launch three weeks from now, and I can hardly wait.  I'm sure that L'Oustau will prove to be a comfortable and envigorating hub for our community.