Our design intern, Chelsea, is running down a list of some of our favorite European designs at
Weisshouse.
Grande Papilio Armchair, Naoto Fukasawa
Fukasawa developed a way of
thinking called “Outline”. Outline is about defining the boundaries of
relationships between objects, people and the environment. Today, Fukasawa is
in Tokyo with a small team, collaborating with many international leading
companies, a professor at Musashino Art University, and a visiting professor at
Tama Art University.
LC4 Le Corbusier,
Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand
The ever so famous “resting machine” designed in 1928. One
year earlier, at age 24, Charlotte Perriand approached Le Corbusier’s asking
for a job and was swiftly rejected with the now infamous line, “We don’t
embroider cushions here.” This closed door didn’t stop her. She designed a bar
made of curved steel, glass, and aluminum for the roof of Paris’ Salon
d’Automne, the annual design festival. Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier’s cousin
and collaborator, brought him to see her design. Le Corbusier was so impressed,
that he apologized and hired her as a furniture designer.
Charlotte Perriand posing on the LC4 Chaise Lounge at the
Salon D’Automne, 1929. It was at that design festival two years earlier that Le
Corbusier had hired her.
Caprice, Philippe
Starck
Philippe Starck has a mission and a vision: creation,
whatever shape it takes, must make life better for the largest number of people
possible. He lives by the approach, “No one is forced to be a genius, but
everyone has to take part.” Starck’s designs extend beyond ergonomic furniture,
including products such as lemon
squeezers, to revolutionary mega-yachts, micro wind turbines, electric cars,
and hotels that aspire to be wondrous, stimulating and intensely vibrant places.
Red and Blue, Gerrit
T. Rietveld
The original chair was constructed of unstained beech wood
and was not painted until the early 1920s. Fellow member of De Stijl and
architect, Bart van der Leck, saw his original model and suggested that he add
bright colors. He built the new model of thinner wood and painted it entirely
black with areas of primary colors attributed to De Stijl movement.
Zig Zag 280, Gerrit
T. Rietveld
Designed in 1934, this natural cherry, gravity defying chair
is one of Rietveld’s most famous designs. Zig-zag is built with four panels
that bend in sequence of an elegant dance to create what may at first seem an
unstable chair, though in reality is very stable. Many knock-offs will show
hardware but the original composition of the chair is flush and seamless.
The
original structure was built in 1923 for use as a mechanic’s garage, complete
with a ramp to get the cars from the back alley down to the concrete shop
floor. It was the only commercial
building in a residential area. In the ‘60s the building was used as a tile showroom.
Some of the tile displays were applied right onto the old shop floor -- a
detail that still remains as the floor of our den. The building fell into the
ownership of the artist Jerry Kaplan in the 1970s. Jerry and other artists
continued to use the space as a studio/living space until they bought it in 2013.
Dividing
the Master Suite from the living area are an amazing pair of Antique English
doors the two found at auction. After removing several layers of old paint, they joined them together to make one massive door mounted with barn door hardware
and a track crafted by a local steel fabricator. The door slides completely out
of the way to reveal a large passageway that works well with the open loft
feel. A wall of cabinetry provides hidden storage adding to the airiness of the
space. The headboard stands as the centerpiece of the room, a prop from the
movie Intolerable Cruelty. 
Keeping roots in the city, they had to work with what we were given as far as outdoor
space. Taking inspiration for the patio from beautiful back basalt Stacy found
from the state of Washington. Landscape Architect Joel LaGull helped to layout
the patio and the greenery. Retaining walls were crafted from concrete with a
black granite aggregate to match the basalt. Along the edges of the property we
used Black Bamboo and large Arborvitaes to enclose the space and give us
privacy, creating an urban oasis in the heart of Shadyside. 
