#and eames has to bring it all back to earth and make it work in the real world

[mortalscience]

Law and Order Criminal Intent - 1x01 - "One" Deakins: Goren, I realize how unstimulating police procedure can be for a right-brained guy like you, and I say this with all the respect due a Detective First Grade… Touch all the bases. What else? Eames: They probably had to pull blueprints, so we'll check with the Building Department. We ran down the limo company that took the Kerstens to Atlantic City. We're waiting to hear back. Deakins: Very nice, Alex.

[therealjambery]

Long fics rec post is long

What better way to while away the time than fanfiction? Long fanfiction! And when I say long, I mean long, like so long it is three novels put together, how on earth did you find time to write this, so long it takes even me more than one day to read long. I'm irrationally jealous of all of these writers, as I am the type of writer who has a hard time dashing off 10,000 words in a timely fashion, let alone writing anything longer.

I'm using the SFWA's definition of a novel here, which is anythiing over 40,000 words.

These are all stories I've loved, and most of them I've actually got saved as PDFs so I can re-read them wherever I want. I'm digging pretty deep into the archives for this one, kids, so hold onto your hats.

Fandoms: Avengers/Marvel, Firefly, Inception, Leverage, Merlin, Stargate Atlantis, Star Trek AOS, Supernatural, Torchwood

Fandom: Avengers/MCU/Marvel/Whatever we're calling it these days

in deep with you darling by topaz Author's Summary: Darcy could have, under normal circumstances, resisted the aesthetics (however awesome they are, and holy crap are they awesome), but there's an itch under her skin—apparently, nearly dying by giant, fire-breathing robots from space in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico will start you questioning your life choices. Who knew? Main Pairing: Clint/Darcy Words: 48024

runaways are running the night by anothercover Author's Summary: Clint did like that the photo stayed private. He’s shit at social media, only on it because, you know, he has to be, but even Clint knew it was the kind of candid that was Instagrammable - #queen, #legend, #rawmemama, etcetera, ad nauseam, he’s pretty sure he could predict the comments before anyone actually typed them. (Bucky once said “raw me, mama?” to her with a goddamn straight face and Natasha’s expression of abject horror while she tried to work out if he meant it had made Clint laugh so fucking hard he was certain he’d ripped an organ in half. He still wants to find a way to work that story into his act, because on the one hand, people love it when he talks about his marriage, but it’s hard to find a way into it that doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of their fans, and that’s a big no-go.) AU: Natasha's in a band, Clint is basically John Mulaney, it's great Main Pairing: Clint/Natasha/Bucky Words: 53873

Ready, Fire, Aim 'Verse by gyzym Author's Summary: There's no "I" in "Avenger." Main Pairing: Steve/Tony Words: 63019

Ain't No Grave (Can Keep My Body Down) by spitandvinegar Author's Summary: It's six in the morning, and Steve is heading out on a run when he nearly trips over a bouquet of sunflowers on the front steps of his brownstone.

For a second paranoia takes over, and he kicks the flowers a little, waiting for them to explode. They don't. They also came with a card, which he picks up. The front of the card has a tasteful picture of the Brooklyn bridge at sunset. It's very nice and sedate, like the kind of card you would buy to give to your boss. On the inside someone has written a short message in big, shaky block letters.

I AM SORRY FOR SHOOTING YOU.

Steve sits down hard on the steps. Main Pairing: Steve/Bucky Words: 107076

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series by owlet Author's Summary: The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect Main Pairing: Steve/Bucky Words: 264438

Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club by sara_holmes Author's Summary: Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club. (Invitation and pending mental health evaluation required.)

"When Steve brings Bucky back to the tower for the first time, Clint’s first thought is that Tony Stark’s pride and joy is quickly becoming a less of a very tall and expensive ‘fuck you’ in the faces of investors who don’t believe in self-sustaining energy, and more of a superhero rehabilitation center."

Boyfriends, compromises and learning to like oneself. Main Pairing: Clint/Bucky Words: 67059

Nobody Lost, Nobody Found by ClaraxBarton Author's Summary: "Look, dude, I get it. You’re fucked-up. HYDRA fucked you up. I’ve been there. But you’re my fucking Soul Mate!"

“I can kill you. I could kill you without even realizing what I was doing. I’m not fucked-up, I’m a monster. I’m a nightmare. You can’t be here. You can’t- All the people I’ve killed- I will not murder my Soul Mate too. Not after everything else I’ve-”

Clint worked his left hand between their bodies and managed to land a punch to the man’s right side, forcing him to shift his weight, and Clint brought his right hand down on the place where the man’s metal arm met his torso - hidden by the shirt he wore, but on full display in the video Clint had watched.

The man released Clint with a grunt of pain, and Clint pressed his advantage, landing another punch to his abdomen, backing him up against the opposite side of the RV and then pressing the kitchen knife he had pocketed while cleaning up earlier to the man’s throat.

“Like I said, I’m not a Boy Scout. I’m plenty dangerous myself. We clear on that?”

OR:

This looks bad, because it is.

OR:

How Clint Barton met his Soul Mate AU: soulmates! Main Pairing: Clint/Bucky Words: 108331

Ronin!Clint 'verse by shatteredhourglass Author's Summary: “Who the fuck are you and how did you get this line?”

“I have my ways,” the voice says, amused. “Don’t worry, I’m just enjoying the view, Captain America.” Main Pairing: Clint/Bucky Words: 63266

Fandom: Firefly/Supernatural

Weight and Motion by sevenfists [note: the podfic by dodificus is excellent] Author's Summary: The pears were ripe, Kaylee told him, but Mal wouldn't eat any of them. They were a present, nestled all sweet and green in a wooden crate that a grateful passenger gave them right before they left her on Greenleaf. AU: Crossover, Dean ends up on Serenity, just roll with it Main Pairing: Mal/Dean Words: 43117

Fandom: Inception

All the World is Bullet Shaped by pushdragon Author's Summary: If Arthur thinks that, just by waving enough money around, he can get Eames to risk his life and reputation to rescue him from a death sentence, he's got another thing coming. So Eames sets a malicious, undignified price on his services, one he can be certain that a man like Arthur would never condescend to pay. It turns out to be the first of many mistakes. Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames Words: 76656

I Seem to Be a Verb by Aja Author's Summary: Arthur owns a quirky hipster science bookstore. Eames is a world-famous mega-celebrity.

Clearly this calls for a meet-cute. AU: Notting Hill AU Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames Words: 93837

In Medias Res by starlingthefool Author's Summary: What's the most resilient infection? What's more infectious than a cold, deadlier than cholera? What lingers in your blood forever?

Love, of course. Mal has always known that. Her pointman Eames may dismiss her for a romantic, but for better or worse, love has gotten her this far. AU: Mirror-verse Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Mal/Dom Words: 52662

The Music Makers by mami_san Author's Summary: A. Graham Cole was twenty-one years old when he was killed in action in Iraq. This is the official story. The truth is, of course, somewhat different. Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames Words: I dunno, because it's not on AO3. But my PDF is 451KB so it's over 50k, most likely.

Presque Vu by rageprufrock Author's Summary: Or, "on the tip of the tongue." Arthur meets Mal first. He inherits Dom, after. Everything else is on him. Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames Words: 69588

Wherever You Will Be (That's Where I'll Call Home) [The DomesticVerse] by gyzym Author's Summary: People you kiss in an airport baggage claim and then don't talk to for thirteen months shouldn't be able to exist, let alone make your chest do the things Arthur's chest is doing. There are rules. Main Pairing: Arthur/Eames Words: 74828

Fandom: Leverage

Psychic AU series by Laughtsalot3412 Author's Summary: He had a sniper rifle scoping the girl’s bright eyes and the guy’s smile. AU: They all have psychic powers Main Pairing: OT3 Eliot/Parker/Alec Words: 89955

Fandom: Merlin

[note: look, I don't even go here. I've never watched the show. But.]

Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock Author's Summary: In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose. AU: Modern AU Main Pairing: Arthur/Merlin Words: 46,059

The Student Prince by FayJay Author's Summary: A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love... AU: Modern AU Main Pairing: Arthur/Merlin Words: 145222

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves by auburn Author's Summary: Vala Mal Doran and her partners, renegades Jehan abd-Ba'al and Meredith McKay, hijack the Tau'ri ship Prometheus and leave the Milky Way behind in search of the Lost City of the Ancients, Atlantis. AU: Space pirates! Main Pairing: John/Rodney Words: 180299

The Price That Life Exacts by cathalin Author's Summary:When John disappears without a trace during a routine mission, people in a beleaguered Atlantis eventually have to try to move on. Rodney never completely gives up hope of finding John, and though he soldiers on to help Atlantis, a year later he still lives every day with his grief. Main Pairing: John/Rodney Words: 63369

Written By the Victors by Spreranza Author's Summary: Caroll, Franklin R. Atlantis Revisited. New York and London, Routledge, 2011. Chapman, Denise. Several Kinds of Genius: The Life of Rodney McKay. NY: Harper Perennial, 2015. Croft, Rosalind. City of Spires: A Memoir. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2009. Dugan, Paul. A Political History of Atlantis. Oxford: OUP, 2012. Main Pairing: John/Rodney Words: 52843

Tongues of Men and Angels by Mad_Maudlin Author's Summary: When SG-4 is ambushed offworld, an injured Major John Sheppard must put his trust in a Tok'ra agent named McKay to survive. But what secrets is McKay keeping about his mission, the planet, and his own motives for helping John? AU: They didn't go to Atlantis Main Pairing: John/Rodney Words: 58523

Fandom: Sherlock (TV)

The Least of All Possible Mistakes by rageprufrock Author's Summary: If ever a people deserved tasering, it’s Holmeses. Main Pairing: Lestrade/Mycroft AU: Genderbent Lestrade Words: 118096

Fandom: Supernatural

Red by Big Pink [note: seriously, this is one of my favorite fics/series ever and I have the ebooks if you want to not read this on LJ or FF.net] Author's Summary: Something evil is killing treeplanters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the same predator that Dean narrowly escaped years before. How Grimm will things get before the brothers figure it out? Main Pairing: none Words: 81839

Fandom: Supernatural/Stargate Atlantis

And All the World Beneath by seperis Author's Summary: Dean remembers Texas as blackland stretching in marker-thick strips of vivid brown and black, broken with the sprawling metroplexes of Dallas and San Antonio and Houston; farms spread with the yellow tops of maize waving in pre-autumn winds, threshers moving complacently through the fields with drowsy men in hats waving at the road. He remembers green and gold fields dotted with cows, half-year calves running on the outskirts of the herds. He remembers these were what he saw between jobs, lives being lived that had nothing to do with creeping twilight and sleeping only behind salt circles and ritual wards. AU: Cthulhu mythos Main Pairing: Dean/John, John/Rodney Words: 67279

Fandom: Star Trek AOS

Leave No Soul Behind by whochick Author's Summary: If you're Starfleet, you spend your whole life wishing you never see an EPAS uniform right up until the moment they become your only hope. Whether you're dying a slow, cold death in space, or a long painful one on some godforsaken planet, they're going to come for you. So count your last breaths, son, and hold on tight. They leave no soul behind. AU: Spock did not join Starfleet, he joined the Emergency Personnel Ambulance Service (EPAS) Main Pairing: Kirk/Spock Words: 258951

The Lotus Eaters by aldora89 Author's Summary: Stranded on the planet Sigma Nox while searching for a missing away team, Spock and Kirk find themselves pitted against a disturbing native life form. With the captain out of commission on a regular basis and Spock struggling to preserve his stoicism, staying alive is difficult enough – but when a slim chance for escape surfaces, their resolve is truly put to the test. Together they must fight for survival in the heart of an alien jungle, and in the process, uncover the mystery of the planet’s past. Main Pairing: Kirk/Spock Words: 93594

Only Good for Legends by leupagus Author's Summary: Detective Spock, born on Vulcan and resident of San Francisco, is assigned to the Midwest police bureau. I think everyone can guess what happens next. AU: Spock is a Detective. Otherwise it's pretty much the same, including Kirk's petty criminal tendencies. Main Pairing: Kirk/Spock Words: 149640

So Wise We Grow by Deastar Author's Summary: "Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week." AU: kidfic Main Pairing: Kirk/Spock Words: 81248

Switch by Ceres_Libera Author's Summary: The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense. Main Pairing: Kirk/McCoy Words: 230867

Fandom: Torchwood

The Rose of Jericho by kaydeefalls Author's Summary: Post-CoE. When Martha Jones encounters a dark UNIT cover-up in the wake of the 456, it's up to Gwen's new Torchwood team to bring the truth to light -- and save Ianto. AU: alternate ending post Children of Earth Main Pairing: Jack/Ianto Words: 62606

That should keep you busy for a while, right? If you have other long fic recs, let me know in the comments/with a reblog!

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for First Sunday of Advent (A)

Rom 13:11-14; Luke 21:25-33

Psalm 24, Ad Te levavi, focusses our hearts and minds as Advent and this new liturgical year begins - it is the psalm used at the Officium, Responsorium, and Offertorium. We’re to focus on God, from whom all our help comes, and we’re to hope only in him for we shall not ask nor pray nor wait in vain for his help. As the psalm says: “To thee, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in thee I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame nor confounded” (vv1-3). 

Human beings are not good at waiting, and although we might think this is something modern and current, in fact it’s as ancient as Adam and Eve. For the primordial tale of Genesis recalls that mankind was impatient and could not wait for the glory that God willed to give us in God’s good time, and according to his wisdom and measure. Hence, when the ancient Serpent tempted Eve and enticed her to grasp at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she did so. Not content to wait for God to give her a share in divinity through his grace, she reached out and grasped at becoming “like god”. 

Thus in God’s wise design, the impatience of Eve is overturned by the patience of Mary, she is who portrayed in the Scriptures to be silent, pondering, contemplating, waiting. In this Advent season, therefore, Mary is our model, she who is pregnant with God’s Word. She harkens back to the first coming of Christ, standing for the ancient people of Israel, the faithful daughter of Sion who waits for the Messiah. Despite Babylonian captivity, exile, and Roman oppression, the faithful remnant of Israel waits for the Lord’s coming to vindicate them; they wait knowing that “none that wait [for the Lord] shall be confounded.” 

But Mary is also the Mother of the Church, and so she stands for the Church pregnant with God’s grace and Word, waiting for the Second Coming of Christ, when all creation shall be renewed and reborn, refashioned in the likeness of the Son and freed at last from corruption, death, and sin. So, St Paul says, later on in his letter to the Romans: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom 8:21f) Hence, this time of Advent is a holy time of expectation. This holy season of waiting crystallises all our moments of waiting for God’s help, for his coming to us in grace, and in the Sacraments. Thus, when we have been brought low by our enemies, that is, felled by sin or the sorrows and trails of this life, we wait for the Lord to save us and deliver us. Ad Te levavi animam meam: “To thee, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in thee I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame nor confounded” (Ps 24:1-3).

Our impatience with waiting is made evident in our times by the eradication of Advent in the popular mindset. The supermarkets bring out their Christmas fare earlier and earlier each year, Christmas carols and music and parties dominate this month, and so, what should be a time of quiet and expectant waiting has become filled with noise and shopping and frantic preparation. If we return to psalm 24, we learn, in fact, what we’re to do in this time of waiting, and it tells us how we best prepare in this season of Advent, and indeed, in all our moments of waiting. The psalm says: “Make me to know thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation; for thee I wait all the day long.” (Ps 25:4-5)

So, in this time of waiting, we are to learn God’s ways, God’s truth; we’re to be taught by God. Thus Our Lady is often shown reading the Scriptures when the angel Gabriel comes to her - consider the beautiful sculpture of the Annunciation in this church, for example. For she who  models for us who to wait for the Lord’s salvation is found pondering the truths of God revealed in Scripture, she has been learning the ways of God revealed in prayer and silent contemplation. For this reason, Our Lady gave us the Holy Rosary, a most beautiful way to ponder the Word of God, and to contemplate God’s ways revealed in our human history. This Advent, this new year, I encourage you take up the Rosary again, and if you already do so, to pray it afresh with renewed devotion. For example, come for our monthly Eucharistic Rosary processions here in the Rosary Shrine – the next one is on Sat 21 Dec at 7pm. Come, and let God teach you to walk in his ways, together with our Immaculate Mother.

The disposition of Our Lady is to trust always in God’s providence, to humbly wait for God’s mighty help no matter what calamities might befall us. Hence in the Gospel today the Lord says that when even heaven and earth are shaken and in distress, we can stand firm and look up with confidence for “your redemption is at hand”. So, too, when the silent Host is lifted up during the Mass, look up with confidence and behold, the Lord is here; the Son of Man comes in a cloud with great power and majesty, as he promises in the Gospel (cf Lk 21:27). Our contemplative waiting, symbolised by the silence of the Mass, and our learning of God’s ways as we actively participate, interiorly, in the holy Mass, prepares us for this: we see, in faith, that God comes not as popular imagination demands or as we might expect. Rather he comes in great humility in the Sacred Host, enveloped in silence and fragility. And yet he comes in majesty and with great power. 

For the Blessed Sacrament is Our Lord himself, and he alone has power to save mortal man from death. The great Enemy who seduced Eve and Adam into sin and thus led humanity to death is overcome – death has no more victory, death has lost its sting (cf 1 Cor 15:55). So, when we receive the Eucharist in the Mass, know that your redemption is at hand, indeed, it is in your mouth and on your tongue, redemption is within you. For as Pope Leo XIII said: “In the frail and perishable body that divine Host, which is the immortal body of Christ, implants a principle of resurrection, a seed of immortality, which one day must germinate.”

We look forward in expectant hope for that day. We await with patience and silence the glory promised to us. For our “salvation is nearer to us now [today] than when we first believed” (Rom 13:11). Therefore, in this time of waiting, let us, as St Paul says, “cast off the works of darkness” and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”. Indeed, let us receive him into our own bodies for he is our “armour of light” (cf Rom 13:12-14), a powerful defence against the darkness that surrounds us. Thus St John says in the Last Gospel: “Et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt”; ‘and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ So, let us always, no matter how dark it gets, lift up our hearts, our minds, our souls to the Lord. 

[nifeandaccurate]

i will not ask you where you came from

inception, arthur & eames

cw: blood, animal death, unsanitary 

--

Arthur’s been missing for two months when he gets the message. It’s from an unknown number to his personal phone, the one whose number he’s given out to maybe three people. The first message is two numbers, a coordinate about 50 miles north. The second is a list of detailed instructions. He reads about halfway through, and then gets up to hotwire a car. After a stop at a hardware store for a shovel and a few pairs of gloves, he heads north. 

A few miles away from the coordinates, the road begins getting bumpier. The woods become denser. What little sunlight is out is blocked out by the branches over head. Eventually, the road ends and Eames gets out of the car. With a shovel and a flashlight in hand, he keeps going. The roots are thick beneath his feet and he feels his way through mossy trunks. When he reaches a clearing, his eyes are immediately drawn to a path of earth that looks more recently overturned. 

He kneels down next to it, sinking his fingers through the loosely packed dirt. It’s cool to the touch. The shovel forgotten by his side, he begins digging with his bare hands. The soft undersoil gives easily.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when he sees it. A loose button, faintly glinting in the dirt. He renews his efforts, pushing voraciously through the soil, looking for something else. Something that should not be there. His hands meet fabric, and he digs them in and pulls. Slowly, something starts to become dislodged. He grasps onto whatever he can, his hand wraps around something solid and he holds on tight. With a careful hand, he brushes dirt away from sunken features. The skin is sallow, and it’s eyes are closed. Eames is glad for this small mercy. If it weren’t for the dirt caked underneath his nails and the earthworms, he could almost imagine that Arthur is at rest. The speckles of sunlight camouflage the vivid bruising around the neck.

Once the body is freed, Eames stands and heaves it over his shoulder. He retraces his steps with sunken footprints and snapped branches. The key is still in the ignition, and he lays the body down in the backseat. He rustles around in the trunk and finds an itchy afghan that he throws over it, and buckles it in for good measure. On the drive back, he turns on the radio to a late night jazz channel, and hums along to fill the space. 

He carries the body up the rickety porch stairs, and pushes open the door with his free shoulder. He pulls aside the shower curtain, and gently lays the body down onto the porcelain. He scrubs himself down in the sink, and then gets to work. He pulls off his stained clothes and dumps them into a large black garbage bag, along with the soiled afghan. In a pair of fresh boxers, he surveys the scene in front of him. He cuts the clothes off of the body in his bathtub, and then turns on the water. He runs his hands through dark strands and with a washcloth, cleans off the accumulated dirt. When the water finally runs clear, he turns off the faucet. He brushes his teeth at the kitchen sink and goes to bed without another glance at the bathroom door. 

The next morning, he goes to the market and buys a pig. He sedates it and brings it home. With an unpracticed hand, he slits it throat and hangs it up to bleed dry over the bathtub. He wipes down the butcher’s knife with bleach, and double bags the remains. The next day, he washes away the dark red stains from the body with gentle hands, and repeats the process. 

He sits vigil for three days and three nights. He kills a crow and pushes its warm heart down an unmoving throat. Slowly, color begins to return to its skin. He follows the instructions to the letter, and after seven days, Arthur’s eyes open. 

His voice is a croak in his throat, and Eames fetches water from the sink with shaking hands. With a nod of thanks, Arthur tips his head back for a deep gulp, his throat bobbing. With a hoarse voice, Arthur murmurs, “Thank you.” 

He leaves the next day. 

Afterwards, the whispers change. Eames doesn’t take on any new jobs for a while, but he hears the chatter all the same. Arthur’s different now. It’s in the slant of his smile or the glint of his eyes— something’s changed. 

The next time their paths cross, Arthur locks eyes with him across the room. There’s something in his gaze that makes Eames linger, and after hands have been shook, Arthur finds him in the corner. With a purposeful hand on his shoulder, Arthur leans in. 

“I owe you a debt,” he says. With a deft wrist, he slides open Eames’ jacket and slips a piece of paper in his inner breast pocket. 

Eames hasn’t come this far to ask questions he knows he won’t get answers to. He gives a nod, and settles back to lean against the wall as Arthur walks away. He watches, and he waits. 

[csnews]

Cambodia’s endangered river dolphins at highest population in 20 years

Stefan Lovgren - April 5, 2019

It’s 5:30 p.m., and several tourist boats linger in the middle of the Mekong River. A blood-orange sun casts a warm glow across the milky brown water, making it the ideal time to photograph the rare Irrawaddy river dolphins that congregate in deep, swirling pools. Not that these dolphins are particularly willing photo subjects, as the tourists on this day are finding out.

While marine dolphins often jump fully out of the water while swimming on a continuous path, the snub-nosed—and indisputably adorable—Irrawaddy dolphins, which grow to be up to eight feet long, will only partially breach the surface before diving back below. They may briefly pop up in one place only to reappear the next time in a random spot a few hundred feet away. The clicking of tourist cameras following each glimpse inevitably comes too late.

It’s an impressive disappearing act. Yet the most remarkable feat these dolphins have pulled off may be that they have not disappeared.

For decades, Cambodia’s Mekong River population of Irawaddy dolphins has verged on extinction. Once believed to have numbered in the thousands, the population began to plummet in the 1970s. During the violent reign of the Khmer Rouge and the years of war that followed, the dolphins were hunted for food. Indiscriminate net fishing, in which the dolphins sometimes end up as bycatch, took a further toll, and by the turn of the millennium, there were maybe fewer than 100 left.

Some conservation measures were finally implemented in the mid-2000s when the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) partnered with the Cambodian government to support law enforcement efforts combating unsustainable fishing practices, which include using poisons and dynamite. Around this time, the Cambodian government also began promoting the dolphins as a flagship species and tourist attraction. Yet it takes time to crack down on illegal activity, and in 2015, a population census showed only 80 individuals remaining.

Then, last year, came some good news. A new survey found 92 dolphins in the Mekong River, the highest number in more than 20 years. Researchers identified nine newborn calves. This year, three more have already been found. Eng Chea San, the director general of the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, says there may be a dozen or more previously unidentified dolphins living in the river.

No one is celebrating just yet, though. The dolphin population remains well below what is considered safe to ensure its future survival. A wide array of threats persists, most notably the planned construction of a new 2,600-megawatt dam in Sambor, Cambodia, which would eat into core dolphin habitat. High mortality among young dolphins also continues to mystify scientists. (Read why Southeast Asia may be building too many dams too fast.)

But, says Mark Drew, a WWF program director in Cambodia, which has spearheaded the dolphin campaign, “We may have been able to bend the curve.” The WWF’s country director Teak Seng calls it “fabulous news,” but adds that there is no time for complacency. “As threats to their survival persist, we need to redouble our efforts to protect the dolphins both for their future and that of the river and communities that live alongside it,” he says.

Ecotourism Stars

Less famous than their ocean-dwelling cousins, river dolphins are among the most endangered creatures on Earth. In 2007, the Yangtze River dolphin, or bajji, became the first mammal to go extinct in more than 50 years and the first cetacean species ever driven to extinction by human activity, according to a Royal Society study.

The Irrawaddy dolphins, which, with their bulging foreheads resemble small beluga whales, live in brackish water near coasts, river mouths, and in estuaries in southern Asia. But three freshwater subpopulations have been established in three rivers, including the Mahakam River in Indonesia, the Ayeyarwady (or Irrawaddy) River in Myanmar, and the Mekong, which originates in the Tibetan highlands and runs through six Asian countries before emptying into the South China Sea. (Read about how “electro-fishing” in Myanmar puts river dolphins at risk.)

The Mekong population, believed to be the largest of the three, occurs here in northern Cambodia. It’s an area that, like most of Cambodia, has experienced intense fishing pressure for decades. The biggest problem for the dolphins has been entanglement in gill nets, causing them to drown.

In 2012, the Cambodian government declared the entire stretch of the river a protected zone, with fishing prohibited at all times in core dolphin habitat. Today, the rules are enforced by a contingent of 32 river guards, and officials say overall dolphin mortality has gone down significantly. “It is no doubt because of the conservation efforts that we are seeing more dolphins,” says Eam Sam Un, a biodiversity and monitoring manager for the WWF. (Read more: Can the Mekong river basin be saved?)

Greater involvement from local communities has also helped, conservationists say. Revered in both Cambodia and Laos, where many people believe the animals are reincarnations of their ancestors, the Irrawaddy dolphins have become a focus of Cambodia’s burgeoning ecotourism sector, which supports the conservation work.

The attention given to the dolphins also has positive spillover benefits for other wildlife in the ecologically troubled Mekong region, says Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Nevada in Reno, who leads a USAID research project called Wonders of the Mekong. “The dolphin is a flagship species, it’s well known in the area, highly visible and attracts national and international conservation interest and funding,” he says. “The protection of dolphins helps to protect the habitat of other wildlife in the area, including endangered turtles and large-bodied fish.”

Dolphin Catalogue

Researchers still have much to learn about the behavior and ecology of the Irrawaddy dolphins, says Lindsay Porter, a dolphin expert who traveled to Cambodia and works with the Hong Kong-based Sea Mammal Research Unit connected to the UK’s University of St. Andrews.

“We don’t really know why the dolphins congregate in these pools, some of which can be 150 feet deep,” says Porter. “It could be because of the availability of food there or possibly because there is less disturbance.”

Researchers are trying to keep track of all individuals in the population, which is no easy task. The only way to differentiate between individuals is by their small dorsal fins, which have slightly different shapes. The fact that the animals only pop up for very short moments and don’t bring their bodies out of the water make them incredibly difficult to photograph for identification purposes.

“It means you’re going to spend a lot of hours on the water,” says Porter, who is involved in a project to update the detailed catalogue of individual dolphins that officials maintain. Porter and other researchers are also planning to study the dolphins’ sophisticated use of whistling as a means of communication.

Teak, the WWF director, is optimistic about the animals’ future. “The Irrawaddy dolphin is Cambodia’s living national treasures and key indicators of the health of the Mekong River,” he says. “Their recovery is a hopeful sign for the river and the millions of people who depend on it. After years of hard work, we finally have reason to believe that these iconic dolphins can be protected against extinction.”

[blinder-s]

Imagination / Eames

yo sorry this took me fuvking months and its still shit lol

here is my master list!

Words: 2,657

Warnings: swearings / illnesses / sad idk? its not that sad but 

You and Eames went back a long way. The two of you had dated for four years before you became ill and ended up in a different hospital bed every week. Then you called it quits.

Although it killed you to do it; you couldn’t watch him stagnate this way in his life, and you couldn’t bare to see him throw away his chances of living without love. 

So you broke up with him, severing all ties and cutting off all contact with him. You had no idea where your ex-boyfriend was these days, and although you only had yourself to blame; sometimes it upset you knowing that you’d never feel the way his arms wrapped around you again.

Eames missed you. How could he not? He tried to forget about you; how your hands fitted perfectly with his, and what it felt like to fall asleep next to you, only your tiny breaths and snores to be heard. But he knew you did it for his sake, because you didn’t want to see him sat next to your hospital bed every day instead of experiencing everything that someone else could give him. But what you didn’t know was that Eames would’ve spent every hour of everyday looking at your eyes, and spent every penny he had on flowers or anything to make you smile whilst you sat exhausted in the metal barred bed. 

Today was the day before his biggest and most important extraction. It was for a powerful man who Cobb believed could bring him back to America to see his children. And despite Eames spending the majority of his time gambling his days away in Mombasa, he too wanted to go home. But back to England. And mainly back to you.

He knew you’d be disappointed in him, the way he became dependent on poker, and the way he forged a living in a hidden-away city; all because of a mission that went wrong a couple of years back. His first attempt at inception.

The first level went smoothly, but then the second; his level. You were there and the idea didn’t take so he hibernated for several months in various bars in Salerno, before moving to Mombasa. In the middle of nowhere.

The day arrived, Eames not having slept a wink. He boarded the plane, following the structured plan and making side-glances at his old friend Cobb, and appallingly dull co-worker, Arthur. He even gave Saito a small smile, despite disliking the idea of having him being part of the dream and process. Though, he had become fairly useful in buying the first class cabin, and stopping Cobb from getting killed; so he rolled his eyes and sucked it up, and waited for the mission to begin.

It began quite badly, to say the least. Arthur hadn’t done his research, causing Eames’ snide and pessimistic comments to triple. He hadn’t always been this negative in life; when he was dating you, he hadn’t ever felt so happy and positive about life- you just seemed to make everything better for him. 

And then you left, and things came crashing down again. He was miserable. And being back around Arthur, who was originally a friend of yours, didn’t help at all.

You see, before you became ill, you were also part of the extraction team. You and Arthur worked side-by-side, having gone to college together and keeping in touch. The first moment Eames saw you, he knew you were the brightest star in the sky. 

The brightest star in the entire universe.

He watched as you worked with the impossibly boring man, managing to make everything more positive than ever. Whilst Arthur would fret and struggle with intricate details, you would just smile and point out the bigger picture. You didn’t seem to care if it annoyed Arthur, and often pointed things out so bluntly that Eames was sure you were asking for a punch. 

And that was what Eames loved about you.

So, you can see why he hated Arthur. Once upon a time, when you were in the picture, the two could see eye-to-eye and even joked around sometimes. Now, all that were exchanged were dull looks and steely glances between the pair. 

It was especially tense now, since Arthur had messed up the research, “(Y/N) wouldn’t have let this happen,” he growled, deliberately knocking into his shoulder. Arthur grabbed Eames’ forearm and pulled him to the side.

“You’ve gotta let her go, man,” he mumbled, “I know you’re thinking about her.” Arthur pulled Eames to the side.

“Fuck off, Arthur,” he grimaced. What killed him the most was the fact that Arthur and you still talked from time to time, whilst he was kept in the dark. He guessed it was fair, since you two were friends before he came into the picture, but did you not realise that he was still very much in love with you? 

“I’m sorry, Eames.” He consoled, following the British man over to where Cobb was, “you know she never wanted to end it with you, right? And I tried to stop her, but she insisted that you deserved a better life than one next to a hospital bed.”

Eames turned to the man.

“If you want her back then go and get her.” Arthur theorised, taking the path of ‘tough love’ in one last ditch attempt to try and get through to his colleague.

“I said fuck off, didn’t I Arthur? Are you really that incompetent?” Eames brushed him aside, anger taking over. Arthur was lucky he hadn’t already been punched. Eames however turned his attention to Cobb, his displeased nature shining through, “I was supposed to have tall night to crack this.” 

“Saito wasn't supposed to be shot in the chest.” He reasoned, “you’ve got one hour, so get us something useful. Please.” Dom’s last word was added as a plea, in hope. In desperation.

Eames knew exactly what desperation felt like. He was desperate for you; for anything. Your voice, your smile, you touch. 

So he continued on with the mission, trying to worm his way into Fischer’s mind as his uncle Peter. It wasn’t a difficult task, since he had been researching and practicing the man several months prior.

They continued down further and further until he was into his own dream. Of course Ariadne had prepared him for this, and everything was as it should be, despite Saito’s depleting health. 

It was at this stage that Eames felt hopeful. His grey eyes started to lift at the thought of completing inception, and even the thought of Cobb seeing his children after decades of torment. But it was the thought that he knew what he had to do.

He had to get back to you. 

All he could think of was your smile. The way your cheeks would redden, and your eyes would crinkle and your teeth would appear as white as snow. The way you always wore your favourite lipstick, but sometimes you’d wear red and Eames would go weak at the knees because, boy, you were something out of his dreams.

“Eames.” Cobb’s voice echoed through the walkie-talkie, snapping him out of his trance. He refocused his eyes and picked up the device, “it’s over.”

And just like that, he was brought back down to earth. There would never be any chance of seeing you again. There would be nothing left of him; and he would never be able to forgive himself if he knew that he couldn’t see you. He’d have to live with the guilt that he could have seen you, but gambled it away.

All he needed was the money from this job for a flight. And he was this close; he wasn’t about to lose you again.

“No.” He voiced, simply. “I can’t have that.” He cried, rushing towards the building, tears threatening to spill. 

“Get to the entry chamber now!” Ariadne’s voice echoed through the snow. He got to Fischer, beginning to revive him before the two other members came trudging in.

“What the hell happened?” He stammered, his eyebrows forming a straight line on his face. It was a face you often told Eames to stop, because it made him look intimidating and scary.

“Mal killed Fischer.” Cobb replied, “I couldn’t kill her. It’s all over.” 

And just like that, Eames felt his heart break in two. His face felt numb as it turned to a neutral expression, and he could feel his eyes clouding. Though he couldn’t be angry at Dom for what he’d done; since he knew what it was like to lose someone he loved. Though not to quite the extent, he too knew heartbreak and the implications of dreaming. It was Eames’ only way of seeing you, too.

“So that’s it, then? We failed?” His voice cracked, as much as he hated it. Dom nodded, the two of them looking at each other with solemn eyes. They both knew what was on the line for this mission. 

Though from the outside you’d never know it, Eames and Dom had an unspoken connection. Whether it was because they’d both been through such traumatic heart breaks, or because they were both fairly narcissistic, no one really knew. But they could both see the life falling from each others eyes as he said those two words, “we’re done.”

“There has to be another way,” Ariadne contemplated as the two men looked at each other dubiously, “we’ll follow him down there.” She pointed to Fischer’s lifeless body next to them.

And no matter how many times they thought of a flaw in her plan; she found a way to make it work. Eames just looked at his old friend, and muttered the words, “we’re already at rock bottom so we might as well try.” 

And so they followed Fischer down there and synchronised the kicks, before riding them all up back to the first level, where Eames continued his ploy of Uncle Peter. Having this much adrenaline, and this much to think about all at once almost made him forget about you. Almost.

The awakening on the plane was almost like an awakening of Eames’ mind, which had been clouded by grief for these past years. He rubbed his eyes, looking around the first class cabin in disbelief; shocked that they’d made the impossible possible.

He looked around, noticing Ariadne’s eyes, still groggy from her first extraction, but bright from hope and what she had just experienced. Arthur was already sat forward, waiting on Cobb and Saito, who had just awoken. 

It was good news. The smile on Cobb’s face, and Saito’s bewildered eyes said it all; it was a success. 

He was coming back to you, and his eyes lit up like yours always did on Christmas morning. The pit of his stomach was swarming with butterflies; because this was the moment he knew he was going to see you again.

“St James’ Hospital, wing seven.” Arthur whispered as he passed the man at the baggage claim. Eames looked at the man with a confused expression. Arthur turned back and gave the man an earnest smile.

And all those years of snarky comments and insults died down, and as Eames nodded to Cobb as he walked out, he felt a weight lift off of his shoulders. All those years grieving in bars and pubs seemed to have been years ago; he was him old self again.

Thanks to you.  

The flight back to his home country couldn’t go fast enough, and he was itching to get off as soon as he got on. He could barely sleep, his knees knocking and fingers tapping in anticipation in the thought of seeing you. 

It was something Eames had only dreamt about for so long, and the thought of seeing you in flesh was almost overwhelming. 

What if you’d changed? Gotten taller? Maturer? Wore different lipstick? What if he didn’t even recognise you?

These thoughts didn’t leave until he was outside St James’ Hospital, a taxi ride from the airport. He fiddled with his fingers as he walked through the open entrance and towards the receptionist.

“(Y/F/N) (Y/L/N),” he spoke to the grey haired man, “am I able to visit her?” 

The man looked at Eames, who was wearing his trusty suit that probably didn’t even fit anymore. It was too tight and too loose in the wrong places and it had a coffee stain on the left lapel. But it was the suit you picked out for him for your parents wedding anniversary dinner, and it was his favourite. 

He was shown up several flights of stairs and along god knows how many white corridors. Eames already knew he’d get lost whilst trying to find his was out eventually, since they seemed to be walking for miles on end.

Until they came to your door. Your name was written in block capitals, and a rota of different nurses who checked up on you was hung on a clipboard. 

He felt sick.

And as the man opened the door that lead to you, Eames’ stomach lurched; his heart dropped and his breathing became heavier; his eyes grew wide and it was as though he had lost all co-ordination of his limbs.

And when he saw you, in the flesh, he almost froze. His fingers stopped fiddling, and he caught his breath whilst looking at your figure in the hospital bed.

You were far more beautiful than he remembered. 

You were perfect. More perfect than any phosphene he had seen when he closed his eyes. More perfect than any of his dreams where he had imagined this moment for years. More perfect than he could remember, from warped memories that he tried to block out whilst he was grieving.

You were the prettiest colour he had ever seen; the loveliest flower in any garden; the brightest star in all of the universe.

And, just like that, he fell in love with you all over again.

Despite being shocked at his sudden appearance, you were more concerned about the fact that he could see the photo you kept beside your bed; one of you and him in front of the Eiffel Tower, on your anniversary.

The truth was; you broke up with Eames because he deserved a better life. And although you were almost better; you didn’t want to know about him. Purely because you couldn’t face it if he had moved onto someone new, and you didn’t want to know what could have been. 

“(Y/N)...” he breathed.

“Eames,” you smiled, still in disbelief that the man stood beside your bed was real. Not just one you’d dreamt up in countless day dreams and hopeful scenarios of parallel universes where you didn’t get sick, “what are you doing here?” You asked, your eyes welling up with tears and making your vision go blurry.

“I need you,” he muttered, crouching down and taking your hand in his, “I don’t care if I have to sit next to a hospital bed for eternity, (Y/N),” he begun, “I don’t care where I am in the world or what I’m doing. All I need is you beside me.”

You choked back a sob as he kissed your fingertips, “are you real?” You laughed, using your other hand to run your fingers through his hair, “I’ve only dreamt of you, it’s hard to know. Even if you are a figment of my imagination, Eames, you’re perfect.”

He laughed, pulling out his poker chip; his token. It defeated the point, but he knew that if he had you he was in the right dream for him. He wasn’t going back to doing jobs for dreams, and he certainly wasn’t going back to gambling.

He was going back to his reality; the one with you. 

“And even if you're just a figment of my imagination, thats not going to stop me from waiting for you.” 

[artistemmaduehr-blog]

Whitney Artists

The formation of self and the individual’s place in a turbulent society are among the key themes reflected in the work of the artists selected for the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The exhibition includes sixty-three participants, ranging from emerging to well-established individuals and collectives working in painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film and video, photography, activism, performance, music, and video game design.

The Whitney Biennial is the longest running survey of contemporary art in the United States, with a history of exhibiting the most promising and influential artists and provoking lively debate. The 2017 Biennial is the Museum’s seventy-eighth in a continuous series of Annual and Biennial exhibitions initiated by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932. It is the first to be held in the Whitney’s downtown home at 99 Gansevoort Street, and the largest ever in terms of gallery space.

Interesting findings:

The 1993 Whitney Biennial was the most diverse exhibit by a major American museum up until that time.[10] In 1970 less than 1% of artists at the Whitney Museum were non-white. In 1991, only 10% of artists were non white. Vanessa Faye Johnson claimed that despite intentions, the "lack of exchange and dialogue, the simplification of complex issues in the Biennial" effectively cast the artists largely as victims in the eyes of the public.

Henry Taylor:

Henry Taylor makes paintings that confront the increasingly visible racial tensions between law enforcement and the communities they serve. THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH! draws on the video Diamond Reynolds captured moments after her fiancé, Philando Castile, had been fatally shot by a police officer in July 2016 in Falcon Heights, Minnesota— an incident that sparked protests nationwide. Taylor’s graphic painting insists that such violence requires an urgent response.

Throughout his career, Taylor has remained committed to uncovering stories—about his family, about black people, about power and despair. “My painting is about…trying to be about some love shit, you know what I mean?” the artist said. “I had a cousin I called Aunt Peggy, and she came to me in a dream. ‘Henry, just tell the truth!’ That’s all she said! And I’ll never forget it. I’m still digging. I just want to be honest and make something beautiful that I can go back and look at and say: ‘I’m proud of that.’”

Jess

Born 1986 in Portland, OR

Lives in Brooklyn, NY

With her material arsenal of found objects, industrial products, fabrics, and foam, Jessi Reaves assembles objects that challenge the boundary between furniture and sculpture. Although designed for use, her works summon a lyrical—rather than functional—association with the body.

During the Biennial, Reaves’s works are on view throughout the Museum, including its conference rooms. For Herman’s Dress, the artist sheathed an Eames Herman Miller sofa in a translucent pink silk slipcover. Her decidedly feminine embellishment gives an erotic charge to this once-radical, now safely stylish modernist statement. In another provocative alteration, Reaves zipped blue waterproof vinyl around a freestanding, wooden shelf, straitjacketing the object from its utilitarian function yet imbuing the shape with a mysterious force.

On several occasions the artist has used studio sawdust mixed with glue, but instead of employing this “woodworker’s trick” to repair imperfections, she applies it as structural material and decorative flourish. Rejecting the sleek craftsmanship of “iconic” midcentury design, Reaves exaggerates markers of construction to an almost aggressive abundance.

Matt Browning

Born 1984 in Redmond, WA

Lives in Seattle, WA

For Matt Browning, crafts such as weaving, stitching, and whittling represent a kind of labor that is often disregarded in art. In his works, he investigates both materiality and the potential reconciliation of traditional craft practices with modernist abstraction. By using folk techniques to create common manufactured forms, Browning brings traces of his hand to structures associated with Minimal and Conceptual art. For the Biennial, Browning created a series of grids. Although they look alike, they are not mass-produced: to make each one, the artist hand-carved a single block of wood into interlocking sections, responding to traditional whittled forms that mimic the links of a chain.

Postcommodity

(Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist)

Founded 2007

A Very Long Line, a video installation by Postcommodity, focuses on the border between the United States and Mexico, an emotionally and politically charged site that has become even more contentious through the 2016 election and the beginning of the current presidential administration.

The installation is designed to disorient, with spinning video projections and out-of-sync audio evoking “genesis amnesia,” or the condition of forgetting one’s own origins. In this case, what has been forgotten—primarily by citizens of the United States—is the Indigenous status of peoples from the Western Hemisphere, including immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala. Forgotten, too, are the Indigenous trade and migration routes that have crisscrossed what is now the border since before European colonization. Filmed from the window of a car, A Very Long Line brings those routes into the dizzying present, one in which the border is never fully known or understood.

Jon Kessler

Born 1957 in Yonkers, NY

Lives in New York, NY

Jon Kessler makes what he calls “performative sculptures,” whose humor and kitsch belie their serious critique. The two works on view in the 2017 Biennial, Exodus and Evolution, are part of a larger in-process project, The Floating World, which addresses the social and environmental impacts of climate change. In Exodus, the series of eBay-sourced figurines that rotate around a screen in an endless march are evocative of mass migrations of people, whether from natural disasters or political situations such as the Syrian refugee crisis. Evolution focuses attention on rising sea levels; two figures in snorkel gear take pictures, apparently indifferent to or ignorant of any impending danger. The repeating image of a proposed luxury residential skyscraper by the late architect Zaha Hadid reinforces the artist’s point: even as the effects of climate change displace millions in low-lying areas, those who can afford not to care are still choosing to build waterfront pleasure palaces.

Kaari Upson

Born 1972 in San Bernardino, CA

Lives in Los Angeles, CA

In Kaari Upson’s recent work, she transforms the soft, flaccid forms of upholstered furniture into solid sculptures. To make the work on view in the 2017 Biennial, she worked from a sectional sofa she found in a Las Vegas tract home and then left in the driveway behind her Los Angeles studio for a year and a half, casting its sections in urethane again and again. The resulting sculptures are still recognizable as furniture, but Upson obscures her sources both by reorienting the forms and by painting the surfaces to abstract the stains the upholstery accrued through use and exposure. Drooping against the wall like a flayed skin or rearing up to tower over the viewer, the sculptures take on a visceral quality, suggesting at once the interior and exterior of the human body.

Dana Schutz

Born 1976 in Livonia, MI

Lives in Brooklyn, NY

In Dana Schutz’s painting for the Biennial, Elevator, figures are seen embroiled in a struggle, both with themselves and with larger-than-life insects, denoting a state of anxiety and alarm. The work (whose dimensions mirror those of the Museum’s large freight elevator) plays with time, as action and gesture appear suspended. Like a truncated history painting, an epic scene is glimpsed between two doors that may be closing or opening. Schutz deploys the transitional space of the elevator as a metaphor for other social spaces that are at once public and private, intimate and estranging, inviting us to consider our own position or role amid the chaos.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen

Born 1976 in Saigon, Vietnam

Lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s short film The Island is shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. The artist and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth—having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam—finds a United Nations scientist who has washed ashore after the world’s last nuclear battle. By weaving together footage from Bidong’s past with a narrative set in its future, Nguyen questions the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.

[zarafoodrecipe]

Love, loss and architecture: The rise of Rachel Neeson

Neeson at her home in Bronte in Sydneys east, where she lives with her two children and architect partner Stephen Neille. Photo: Nic Walker Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size Rachel Neeson takes precise martinet steps as she crosses the street with a phone to her ear. Her slight frame is engulfed by a royal blue cape with a sharp mid-century cut, her russet hair drawn back from a straight fringe and clasped into a ponytail. Her features look drawn even careworn. But this image of one of the country's most exciting architects, caught through a window of her award-winning Juanita Nielsen Community Centre in inner Sydney's Woolloomooloo, is fleeting. The moment she steps inside a switch is flicked: the cares seem to melt and a smile spreads across her slightly angular face. She suggests we find a table on the mezzanine. "I doubt there'll be anyone about," she adds as we take the beach-gold stairs. "It should be quiet." Neeson, who turned 50 this month, heads a small Sydney practice with a big reputation and a dramatic backstory of love, tragedy and, finally, triumph. I'd expected a bundle of nerves, given her protestations in an email exchange about time poverty. With less than 24 hours before leaving for the Venice Biennale of Architecture with her children, Alice, 11, and Otto, 8, and partner Stephen Neille also an architect Neeson is in a crunch with books to balance, a young family to corral, and last-minute travel arrangements to make. The Juanita Nielsen Centre, winner of the profession's 2017 national awards for both heritage and public architecture, is light-filled and vibrant. The handrail is encased in leather, the kitchen is a glossy vermilion, while the tactile internal concrete walls have a gentle corrugation. "This came out of thinking about the play of light on a fluted surface we asked ourselves, 'How do you give this concrete core a sense that it's been touched by hand, and thought about?'" Neeson explains. The centre is named after Juanita Nielsen, an urban activist who disappeared in 1975, aged 38, her body never found. In Neeson's work the act of remembering Nielsen is delicately handled: more celebratory wake than funereal dirge. I ask about the jaunty black-and-white diagonally striped awnings outside. "Maybe we went overboard there," Neeson laughs. "We came to think of it as the Juanita stripe. She had a fondness for stripes. And it's there in the pattern on the ceiling." With work the subject, her gestures are so fluidly expressive to illustrate a point, both hands caress the air in a hula-like move that I remark on them. Dance, she says, was her first artistic love: "I would have been a dancer if I could have been." Advertisement There's a joyful quality to the centre that architecture critic Laura Harding sees as a defining characteristic of Neeson's work. One of her best-known houses, at Whale Beach, twists and turns over three levels on a steeply sloping hillside, each room designed to capture a new facet of the ocean and headland view. It was co-designed with her late husband Nick Murcutt, a rising star in his own right and the son of Glenn, the only Australian to win architecture's equivalent of the Nobel, the Pritzker Prize. Nick was Neeson's partner in life, love and architecture until his death seven years ago from cancer, at 46. That she emerged from grief with her delight in form, space and texture intact is a wonder and a gift. The redesigned Prince Alfred Park Pool in inner Sydney, known as Redfern Beach. Photo: Brett Boardman The same playful quality, almost a tone, is there in the Kempsey-Crescent Head Surf Life Saving Club on the NSW mid-north coast, which Neeson overhauled in 2015. Its opaline glazed brick surface was inspired by a handful of pipi shells. The building's bold heft and equally expressive wide-screen views help to place it firmly in its coastal setting. And it's there in Neeson's upgrade of the Prince Alfred Park Pool, referred to by inner-Sydneysiders as "Redfern Beach": a reimagining replete with yellow umbrellas, timber surfaces and sky-blue stripes of a fenced recreation space that had previously looked like a grim cell block. The sweet-sad memory of Nick Murcutt threads through Neeson's reflections on the Juanita Nielsen building. "You know, this was the first public tender we won" she uses "we" when referring to the practice "after Nick's death." She pauses to make a quick calculation. "It was, I think, 15 months later." Surveying an exposed-brick wall, she raises her eyes to the herringbone patterned roof beams as one looks fondly into the face of a friend. Neeson's story of love and architecture and love through architecture is a common enough tale in a profession perfectly suited, almost designed, for partners in love and work: Finns Alvar and Aino Aalto, Americans Charles and "Ray" Eames, and honorary Australians Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin. A variation on the theme looms closer to home. Glenn Murcutt and his architect wife Wendy Lewin weave in and out of collaboration like partners in a waltz. They jointly designed an education centre at Bundanon in a bend of the Shoalhaven River that inspired many of Arthur Boyd's later works, and, more recently, a museum at the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge, both in NSW. The collaborative principle that is so evident in Neeson and Nick's work flows through her four-year relationship with Neille, who has joined her as co-director from his base in Perth. The practice may in reality these days be Neeson Neille, but it still bears the name Neeson Murcutt Architects, in honour of its legacy. Earlier this month, Neeson and Neille found themselves sharing the winners' podium at the annual Houses magazine awards in Sydney, when they picked up a gong for their first project together their own home, on a busy street close to Bronte beach. At the same ceremony Neeson accepted an award for the last project that she and Nick designed together, a robust concrete house set in an exotic coastal Sydney garden. "It was like seeing the arc of time distilled into a moment," says one architect at the ceremony. Advertisement The Juanita Nielsen Community Centre. Photo: Brett Boardman Neeson's childhood, much of it spent on the move in Europe, was by any measure unconventional. The daughter of an electrician father and nurse mother who decided they wanted to travel the world, she didn't live in a standard suburban home until she was a 19-year-old university student. Before that it had been a procession of transient digs. She and her younger sister and brother would find themselves in class one day, on a flight from England to Spain the next. "I learnt how to make friends in a caravan park within 20 minutes," she laughs. Did her sense of place as an architect develop from a placeless childhood? "On the contrary," she shoots back. "It was place-rich." She remembers the precise day in 1988 that she met Nick. A second-year architecture student at Sydney University, she joined a student panel to help select the new chair of architecture for a department open to student input. Nick, then a fifth-year student, was also on the panel. He was Australian architecture aristocracy the dauphin. She had no architectural pedigree at all. But what she did have was smarts Neeson would win the architecture medal with first-class honours upon graduation a dancer's poise and a girl-most-likely air. Their relationship began in 1995, after which the collaborative immersion was all-embracing. In 2004 they formalised it with the creation of Neeson Murcutt Architects, and began to reel in prestigious awards for subtle, place-sensitive homes that never seemed the product of an existing school or design dogma. Architect Camilla Block co-designed the sinuous corner building in Sydney's Potts Point, with its crackled skin and irregular splay of windows (dubbed "Barcelona" by fellow architects) that houses both her own studio, Durbach Block Jaggers, and that of Neeson Murcutt. She worked with Nick from 1994 the firm was then Durbach Block Murcutt and still remembers the spirit of collegiate play he brought to the office. "Nick was interested in everything," she says. "He was not a head-down-bum-up type. He was in essence a pleasure seeker; he'd rather be at a restaurant than at his desk." When he talked about work, his ideas and conjectures would fire from one another, like architectural improv or bebop. In partnership with such a breezy extemporising hedonist, Neeson retreated to a role that suited, but at the same time constrained her. She became the kite holder. At the end of the string, weaving and darting, was her partner. It took all her strength and guile just to tether him and bring him back to earth. Advertisement On March 17, 2011, the couple were married. They had been together 16 years and the celebration was to have been a grand international architecture shebang in a paddock at Murcutt pre's farm at Kempsey. But Nick was at the tail-end of a nine-month battle with lung cancer. With his health rapidly failing, the wedding was pared down to a spare essence, the ceremony held at his bedside. The following day, he died at home in Bondi. It was a black moment for Australia's intensely competitive yet curiously clannish architecture profession. The funeral, held at the Church of St Canice in Sydney's Elizabeth Bay, was packed to overflowing as architects from the country and the city, men and women, old and young, drew together. "It was unutterably sad," recalls a figure in the architecture world, who declines to be named. "Glenn couldn't speak. He was crushed. Nick's mother spoke, though, and brought alive the boy and young man Nick had been." Neeson, never less than lithe, was almost skeletal. Some were concerned for her and her young family. Others were struck by the fortitude that shone through her physical frailty. For Philip Vivian, director of storied architecture firm Bates Smart, it was the first time he had registered her "incredible inner strength". None were aware of the full extent of the catastrophe, though they would soon enough. Neeson was reeling not only from the death of her lover, business partner and the father of her two children; she was also facing the imminent crash of their flourishing architectural practice. "I had significant personal debt, a one-year-old, a four-year-old, and nine staff," she recalls. In a stoical tone, one hand kneading the other, she says she and her children moved from the small Bondi place she'd shared with Nick to a rambling home with her parents in Sydney's inner west. It was here that she began to repair. Rachel Neeson and Nick Murcutt in 2009 at the Whale Beach property they designed. Photo: Steven Siewert The first year was the worst. Nick was not so much a memory as a spectral presence, and Neeson would often find herself conjuring his large and sunny spirit. "I would have these discussions with Nick in my head," she says. "Or I would try to." The couple had been so deeply immersed in collaboration that not even death, it seemed, could silence their duet. She retains a memento of the architectural conversation that anchored their love in a concept drawing of a house in Castlecrag for which the couple won the 2011 Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture. Perched above Sydney Harbour, tucked in behind a sandstone outcrop and nestled in an angophora forest, it features bold gestures of brick, stone, concrete and wood. "One of us had blue pen, one of us had black pen, and you can see the lines weaving together as we designed with that special site in mind," she says. By the time the house was completed, Nick's health was deteriorating. The couple spent a few summer nights there by the water, with the clients' permission, before the clients moved in. "Friends would drop around. It was beautiful." Advertisement Collaboration had given their young practice an undergirding, and creative dynamism. But it also left it vulnerable. Nick had been the business manager, even though business was not his strength. They'd not thought to take out life insurance, and the debt from medical bills by the time of his death was frightening. Neeson's first step was to hire a new accountant, one who didn't make her feel "stupid" when she asked financial questions. The second required deeper reserves of character. If the practice was to survive the death of its most visible partner she would need to grow, to reclaim dimensions of herself she'd ceded to her freewheeling, charismatic soulmate. "For Nick, architecture was a much more intuitive thing," she says. "We were complementary in that sense. I think he enjoyed that the addition of what the other can bring. We both enjoyed it." A tentative smile spreads across her face and her hands unclasp. "Some time after he died, I started to draw on my own intuition more deeply. It takes confidence to trust one's intuition, and perhaps my confidence has grown in the years since Nick's death, because it has had to." If she had failed, after his death, to deepen her own intuitive capacity she would not be the architect she is now: celebrated by her profession's highest honours, widely respected for both her courage and talent. Recalls Bates Smart's Philip Vivian: "Rachel set about completing buildings begun with Nick such as the Prince Alfred Park Pool upgrade, which is a stunning piece of work, as well as her own projects such as the Kempsey surf club at Crescent Head. It must have taken immense fortitude to continue on with the practice." Vivian would later put Neeson's name forward for a large project at Newmarket Green in eastern Sydney's Randwick, a puzzle of low- and high-density housing, parks, new streets and remodelled heritage buildings. Neeson's team chipped in with a three-storey apartment building characterised by crisp lines, spacious lobbies and varicoloured brickwork. A story Vivian tells of the pitch for that project highlights Neeson's realisation of the need to project in person the vibrancy that is so much part of her work. "The developer was worried about Neeson Murcutt, as they were a small practice," he recalls. "We set up a meeting for their head of residential development to meet Rachel at a coffee shop. It was meant to be an informal chat, but somehow, when it came to selling the work of Neeson Murcutt, Rachel had an odd moment, and couldn't promote herself." Another architect, who was at that meeting, confirms the story. "She totally fluffed it," he recalls. The story offers an insight into the difficulties faced by a reserved, cerebral woman heading a small practice in the masculine world of building development, where it's all about the pitch. "That was a real learning experience," Neeson tells me. After the meeting, she berated herself: "This was a meeting with a developer and he just needed to know how good I am! Instead I gave him the typical female under-sell. I really needed to put my best foot forward and to make sure everyone could see that foot that it wasn't hidden beneath a skirt." Pipi shells inspired Neeson's design for the outside of the Kempsey-Crescent Head SLSC, which she overhauled in 2015. Photo: Brett Boardman Advertisement The position of women within a profession dominated by heroic male architects is slowly changing. Neeson's success reflects that change. Men are potent figures in her story but it was Neeson who kept the practice alive in the dark days; who learnt how to work without her partner; how to pass those lessons to her staff. She has evolved her own distinctive aesthetic; rigorous yet playful, with a touch of intrigue, married to a minimalism not of form but of ego. She makes a point of drawing professional women into her working life. Her go-to landscape designer is Sue Barnsley, and Iranian-born designer and academic Maryam Gusheh has recently joined as a part-time critical adviser. "There is a strong movement right now in gender equity which I think is particularly important in larger architecture practices, which have forever been male-heavy at the top," Neeson says. After this interview, she is expecting a visit from the famed Barcelona-based architect Carme Pins: the women met while Neeson was completing a master's degree in the Spanish city. Roughly the same number of women and men graduate each year with architecture degrees in Australia, but noticeably fewer women enjoy the rewards that come with partnership in a big firm. Fewer still have steered their own firms as Iraqi-British architect and Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid did. So concerned is the profession about gender equity at the moment that a group, with the somewhat cheerleaderish title Architect Male Champions of Change, has formed to advance the cause. SJB Sydney director Adam Haddow, along with fellow member Philip Vivian, is convinced that a more evenly balanced profession would make for a better built environment. "I think in Rachel's work we're able to see how delightful our cities could be," he tells me. "From my perspective, there is an understanding of 'local essence' or a hyper sense of 'knowledge of place' in the work of Neeson Murcutt but at the same time there is nothing familiar or preconceived. It is as if with every project, Rachel and the Neeson Murcutt team are able to take you somewhere you didn't even know existed the work is refreshing and delightful. I always walk away from it with a feeling of 'I wish I'd done that.'" The husband-wife pattern is so pronounced in architecture that female architects, until relatively recently, were usually known through collaboration with their famous husbands. A 2001 survey of American architects found that one-fifth had a "spouse or significant other" who was an architect. "Women as architecture leaders in their own right have been less visible," Neeson agrees, adding that her generation "is the first where this has changed". That change is evident in the names of those talked about with excitement in Australian design circles these days. Neeson and Camilla Block work a similar seam to Clare Cousins, Kerstin Thompson and Hannah Tribe, Amelia Holliday and Isabelle Toland; all head their own small firms or work in partnership with one other architect. Others, such as Abbie Galvin, principal of the Australian-based international firm BVN; Emma Williamson, director of COX; and Olivia Hyde, the NSW Government's director of design excellence, hold leadership roles in large firms. Of this group Cousins is the most prominent dual-tasker: she is head of her own Melbourne-based practice and national president of the Australian Institute of Architects. Whether they specialise in the architectural versions of solo or orchestral parts, none of these women play second fiddle to anyone. Neeson with Stephen Neille. Photo: Erieta Attali Neeson met Stephen Neille at Sydney University before she met Nick Murcutt. It was her first year, and Neille's fifth. "Stephen and I were both participating in a national student competition," she recalls (she came second). "We became friends and remained so over all those years." The couple fell in love in 2014 and he moved to Sydney a year later from Perth, where he'd been in partnership with Simon Pendal. Her move to, in a sense, corporatise the relationship with Neille, as she and Nick had done in 2004, was never desired or planned. "It was our intention that once Stephen moved to Sydney, he would keep working with Simon," she explains. "But he and Simon just found working apart on opposite sides of the country too difficult." Neeson's talent and tenacity helped to stabilise the practice, but it has not been a smooth, steadily upward trajectory. "A few years ago, when every architectural practice in Sydney was going gangbusters, I realised we had no new work," she says. Her instinctive response was to put out feelers, as she had done in the year after Nick's death. "I started to quietly let my colleagues know," she offers. "I would ask if they had any projects to spare." She may have been nettled by her former accountant's response to her financial queries, but she is fearless about quizzing colleagues on big- and small-picture architectural issues. An architect at a commercially successful Sydney firm recalls Neeson buttonholing him at a function on the subject of big project management. Her willingness to reach out to colleagues contributes to an impression of modesty, even vulnerability, which is rare in a profession with a fondness for uncompromising individualists. "A friend asked me around the time of Nick's death what my goals were," Neeson says. "I aimed to break even. I never thought we would grow." But the firm is growing. There are now 13 staff, including three students, 10 "active" projects and a number of entries in public competitions. When Neeson Murcutt began, high-end homes were Neeson's metier. But as her practice has matured, her focus has turned increasingly towards sophisticated projects of public interest that synthesise landscape, heritage and culture. The Kamay Botany Bay National Park, on the site where James Cook took his first steps on the eastern seaboard, is the latest. "It is the most important site in Australia," she says. "It has such a story. The people here were the earliest displaced people in our country." In the process of developing a plan for the park, she has learnt that the blooming of the wattle heralds the northerly migration of whales along this stretch of coast. "Doesn't everyone want to know that?" she asks with an unbridled flash of joy. "I want to know that!" Rachel Neeson at her home in Bronte, for which she and Stephen Neille won a design award. Photo: Nic Walker We catch up for a second time after Neeson's return from Italy, at a Kings Cross cafe in a laneway close to her practice. I expect her to regale me about the architectural splendours of Rome, where the family holidayed after the biennale. But she's keen to talk instead about her observations of the way children respond to architecture their "beautiful strength", sense of "wonder" and innate "spatial" intelligence. She and Neille had taken Alice and Otto into the dome of St Peter's Basilica. They laboured to the top, as Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg famously did in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, along a progressively narrowing stairway between Michelangelo's inner and outer domes. The experience brought home to her, in a direct and immediate way, the "bodily" sensation of space, which in this case bordered on claustrophobia. At the top, with Rome spread out below, contained space gave way to infinite space, and she could breathe again. Michelangelo's dome was not so much a revelation as a reminder of what she does with architecture. "I really try to imagine the human activity the building will host and understand it not just from a functional perspective, but from an active feeling perspective," she says. When Camilla Block casts her mind back to the friend she knew in the days before architecture and life got serious, she sees a woman striving to keep her partner at his desk. "He would much rather drift away for a chat," she recalls. "Or go out to lunch." Neeson didn't need to channel Nick's more expansive talents after his death, she observes, as she had them all along. "They've always been there. We just take on certain roles in a relationship. Rachel was always capable of being who she is." Hair and make-up by David Grainger. To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age. https://www.smh.com.au/national/love-loss-and-architecture-the-rise-of-rachel-neeson-20180822-p4zyyd.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

[connorrenwick]

Design Milk Travels to… Scottsdale, Arizona

Scottsdale, Arizona likes to bring attention to its wild and untamed side, underlining its picturesque and perilous Sonoran desert surroundings. But the fact is the wild western vibe – while still as visible as the towering stature of saguaro cacti dotting the landscape – is fading into the sunset, allowing the city’s mid-century and contemporary pedigree to shine. Luxe and cosmopolitan options are aplenty, each attracting vacationers looking to spend the day outdoors getting dusty and dirty, then clean up for a cocktail-fueled night on the town. For Angelenos like myself, Scottsdale is distant enough to deliver all the benefits of a vacation, while close enough to rank high as a candidate for a long weekend getaway. The Design Milk guide below shares some of our favorites spots we’ve visited through the years, in and around the “West’s most Western town”:

One of our favorite places for a sunset stroll is alongside the Soleri Bridge and Plaza, designed by renowned artist and architect, Paolo Soleri. Photo: Gregory Han

WHERE TO STAY

Andaz Scottsdale Resort & Spa: Scottsdale Resort: If your idea of the perfect vacation is laying poolside with nary a thought about time – with drinks always at an arm’s length – then the upscale Andaz Resort has you covered three-fold with its trio of pools. But what we most remember about the luxury Hyatt-operated resort overlooking the Camelback Mountain are its 201 Alexander Girard-inspired guest bungalow-style rooms, the entirety stretched across a checkerboard of desert landscaped walkways all leading back to the resort’s communal pools, lounge, and eatery.

A womb with a view: Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair and Ottoman is one of many mid-century pieces furnishing each room at the Andaz. Photos: Andaz Scottsdale Resort & Spa.

With rooms at the Andaz featuring names like the Eames Bungalow, Saarinen Bungalow, Girard House, and Albers House, it’s pretty clear the resort embraces the mid-century spirit that still looms prominently across Scottsdale. Rooms are decorated with a sophisticated mixture of mid-century classics mixed in with contemporary local furnishings and art, staying clearly outside the bounds of retro-kitsch decor. Small semi-private patios and enclosed backyard spaces permit sunbathing during the day and stargazing at night, affording guests a level of privacy always welcome while vacationing.

My inner introvert was pleased being given the option for privacy with our own miniature backyard at the Andaz (also ideal for stargazing at night; falling stars aren’t an uncommon sight).

The Scott: If Instagram is any indication of where we should stay next while in Scottsdale, we’re apt to reserve a night or two at The Scott Resort & Spa. The Scott presents a trendier side of Scottsdale; imagine a craft cocktail served with a sprig of 1930s German modernist vibe, all set within a lush atmosphere established with high cane back chairs, dabs of greenery, and a liberal dose of brass detailing.

The resort’s newly renovated indoor/outdoor lobby bar is its most captivating space, decorated with a relaxed joie de vivre. The old meets new spirit isn’t accidental: the 55-year-old former property actually dates back to 1961, when it was called the Executive House Arizonian. Purchased in April 2016 by Classic Hotels & Resorts, $15 million was invested to renovate every corner of the property with a somewhat unique theme of “Spanish Revival meets Bauhaus”.

Photos: The Scott Resort and Spa

Sanctuary: The broken brittle outline of the Camelback Mountain plays a prominent and panoramic role here, shadowing the 53 acres of the Sanctuary grounds everywhere guests look. Suites are comfortably contemporary and envisioned with a monochromatic eye, allowing the landscape to take center stage.

And the hotel does indeed lives up to its name in amenities, offering guests the sanctuary of a meditation garden overlooking its own reflecting pool, a water-therapy pool, lap pool and full-service salon. A complimentary candlelight turndown service punctuates each evening with a romantic notion.

Photos: Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa<

Hotel Valley Ho: Where the above-mentioned Andaz respectfully nods to mid-century design, the Hotel Valley Ho fully wraps itself in its most vibrant and colorful history. Designated a historically significant American hotel by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the hotel has been kicking it old school even before there was an old school to speak of. But don’t worry, each room and suite at Hotel Valley Ho isn’t a time capsule, benefitting from an $80 million renovation responsible for modernizing the 1956-built hotel, refreshing the Downtown Scottsdale’s accommodations with soft pillow-top beds, Terrazzo-tile bathrooms, and large flat screen television inside every room. Now it’s equally modern and mod.

Photo: Hotel Valley Ho

Other notable hotels: The Saguaro Scottsdale \\\ W Scottsdale \\\ The Canyon Suites at the Phoenician \\\ Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North (traditional, but undeniably luxurious)

WHERE TO PLAY

Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and school, Taliesin West. Photo: Gregory Han

Taliesin West: No trip to Scottsdale is truly complete without visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Sonoran winter home and architectural school. Tours winding through the residence and working classrooms are guided by passionate volunteers infinitely versed in the history of the buildings and life of the iconic architect. Every return reveals new and fascinating details, tying together the desert landscape with the architectural philosophies of its founder.

Taliesin West interior. Photo: Gregory Han

Arcosanti: Venture northward up along Interstate 17 into the desert and you’ll eventually find signs directing visitors to an experimental terrestrial commune spaceship of sorts. Envisioned as a utopian living laboratory by artist and architect, Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti (a portmanteau of ‘architecture’ and ‘ecology’) persists in its exploration of improving the urban experience through holistic planning. After taking the hour-long guided tour, be sure to grab a health and staff-cooked meal served in Arcosanti’s cafeteria for the full experience.

Those beguiled by the architecture of Arcosanti have the option to stay overnight. Photos: Gregory Han

Cattle Track Arts Compound: With renowned architectural destinations like Taliesin West and Arcosanti swallowing all of the attention, it’s no surprise most people never make it inside the Cattle Track Arts Compound. A shame, because within its intimate complex exists the heart and soul of Scottsdale’s creative community. Artists, craftsmen, and students work both individually and collectively to continually shape and reshape what it means to be a Sonoran American artist. Several works from Cattle Track are sold nearby at the Andaz Resort’s gift shop.

Other things to do and see: Desert Botanical Garden \\\ Soleri Bridge and Plaza \\\ Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art \\\

WHERE TO SHOP

Cosanti photos: Gregory Han

Cosanti: When the weather is just right, the former residence of Arcosanti architect Paolo Soleri greets visitors with the musical multitude of ceramic and metallic Soleri bells ringing from nearly every surface, each vying for your attention to buy and take home. There’s an amusing irony at play, noting Cosanti’s name derives from Solari’s anti-consumerist beliefs (Cosanti was created joining two Italian words: cosa and anti; “opposed to things”), yet the gift shop at Cosanti is our favorite in all of Scottsdale. Even if you don’t buy a single item, touring the Earth House and foundry here feels like a gift in itself.

Copenhagen Imports: Danish founders Tony Christensen and Erik Hansen, began in 1970 with a belief the simple, unadorned, yet functional modern designs of their homeland could find a place in the Southwest. Decades later, they’ve expanded to 6 more locations across numerous states, each showroom stocked with modern classics and newer designs, each abiding by the tenet “that clean design is more sophisticated than heavy ornamentation”.

Modern Manor: With over 6,000 square feet of furnishings spanning the decades of the 1940s thru the 1970s, and fortified with a convincingly confident portfolio of staged interiors, the team at Modern Manor is highly capable of advising how to mix and match their selection of modern classic furnishings within a contemporary space.

Modern Manor

Modern on Melrose: If the words “vintage” and “original” perks up your ears, the assemblage of mid-century modern antiques on display at yet another Melrose District store should definitely warrant a visit. Ideally, you’d set a budget, check out their Instagram account, then swoop in with purpose and intent. But come on, half the fun is just browsing.

Jim Sudal Ceramic Design: Hardy desert flora features prominent in ceramicist Jim Sudal’s collection of captivating Sonoran Desert pottery sold from his studio and gallery (admirers from afar can also purchase his designs online). Embellished with graphic depictions of Blooming Aloes, Prickly Pear, Agave and Desert Lupine, each hand thrown vases, bowls, tiles, and plate glows with the resilient spirit of plants.

Photo: Jim Sudal Ceramics

FINAL WORDS

There’s a plaque adhered onto Taliesin West’s music auditorium wall attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu that reads, “The reality of the building does not consist of the roof and walls, but the space within to be lived.” Similarly, Scottsdale is best understood not by the city’s limits, but in appreciation of the larger expanse of sun, air, and Sonoran desert permeating all around – a space that has long inspired the likes of Lloyd Wright and Soleri to seek its arid palette as muse and material. Visit Scottsdale enough and you’ll remember.

Have any other favorite destinations in or near Scottsdale we’ve missed? We welcome additional recommendations below!

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40 Gorgeously Minimalist Living Rooms That Find Substance in Simplicity

Minimalism. What does it mean to you? Does it say white walls, wooden floors and wide-open French windows? Does it look like block sofas, strong architecture, muted colours and patterning? Minimalism doesn’t have to mean choosing simple, boring or inexpensive furniture and accessories. Simply meaning ‘less is more’, minimalism can help focus your room on your desired mood or theme. Paint it pretty, with a row of pink couches set upon a white floor. Make it dramatic, with a striking beige and white line halving your room in two. Find substance in simplicity, with our top 40 gorgeous looks for minimalist living rooms and interiors.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov    White, eggshell and wood need not be boring. Making frames on the balcony and bookcase beyond, wood lets in light both from the outside world and LEDs within. Dining cubby chairs mirror their lines with their legs, while simple futon sofas provide a place to rest. See more of this interior here.

Visualizer: Oleg Trofimov   Want a little more contrast? These beige futon sofas, ottomans and chairs provide warmth beside a gramophone, baskets and log bench in darker shades. An electric fire brightens the atmosphere.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Let a line of LEDs do the talking. Bathed in moody charcoal, the feature wall, modern sofa and wide-span rug of this interior are centred on a below-TV line of lights. The rug’s geometric patterning ties in the look.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Halve your interior. This platform-raised design features pure white on one side, a room in mushroom on the other. Simple block furniture and comma-shaped cushions make colouring the hero.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Subtle texturing can make your lounge come alive. Alternating wood grains in the cabinets and floor mix with a spindly metal coffee table and plush sofa seating, creating areas that differ only ever so slightly. A stack of books adds a finishing touch.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Take your living room up a level. The architectural lines of this black, white and grey interior ensure the eye is distracted while the hues remain simple. Exposed brick walls, a cotton couch and wooden flooring create difference with texture. See the complete interior here.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Not sure how to house your kitchen and lounge? Take a cue from this shared space. Using light grey flooring to connect the two, the lounge remains white, bright and rectangular; the kitchen bathed in concrete grey. Under-cabinet LEDs keep the kitchen’s light breathing, while a black dining set harks to the lounge with a vase of white florals.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov   Want to introduce more colour? This minimalist space ties white, black, grey and taupe together for an ultra-modern look. A light-infused balcony brings brightness to the home, while lines of ceiling lights and a faux deer head add character.

Visualizer: KUOO Architects   Play with shape and form. The rectangular lines of this lounge’s sofa, rug and cabinets meet three coffee table spheres and Chinese lantern lights. Teardrop shapes shine through in glowing lightbulbs and sprig-bearing vases.

Designer: DNA Concept Design   Photographer: Hey!Cheese Photography    Designing for an apartment? Minimalist hues can add the illusion of space. These light greys, whites and woods are framed by lines between wall cabinets, ceiling contours and wooden floor panelling. Black joins the party in a flat screen TV and sliding door frames, as an Eames Bird replica keeps watch.

Visualizer: Karolina Krac   Create more room by hollowing out furniture. This minimalist living room does it well, with lifted sofas and cabinets, a white ringed chandelier, and an opposing mirror reflecting the view. Muted colouring allows space for potted greenery.

Visualizer: Modom Studio   Make your living room dramatic. This décor dominates with striking black camera lights, a TV, filigree light pendants and a rock-star leather couch. See more of this film-set style interior here.

Visualizer: ARTSTUDIO Design   Want a space that’s purely monochrome? The stark black wall, suede L-sofa and stencilled coffee table of this bachelor pad look less moody beside large panels of white. Two unique floor lamps provide height beside an artwork.

Visualizer: Tamizo Architects   Worried your black and white living room might look too extreme? Mix black with navy ceilings, rugs and curtains, as per this interesting interior. Paired with black hover lights, joinery and artwork, the room’s dark panels are brightened beside walls in white and a burst of green fernery.

Visualizer: 365 Design   Make scenery a key part of your interior. The wide open windows and sheer chiffon curtaining of this monochrome space open up a wall of hanging creepers and manicured hedges. Metallics in circular pendants and a sofa add flair, while a tiled floor in marble lines it with luxury.

Architect: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates   Stick to your building blocks. Based on a concrete floor, the only feature of this minimalist living room is a TV in black.

Visualizer: PIX 3D STUDIO   Black and white photographs can make the minimalist human. Set on a stark white wall and painted floor, three captured faces gesture amidst a ruffled rug, reclined seating and unique coffee tables.

Architect: VAVO Studio   Try something more Scandinavian. A light wooden floor, muted seating and tables afford visual space for hipster monochrome prints and some jazzy lime cushions.

Architect: Ford Design   Looking for more character? This funky lounge is a great example of pop art minimalism. Surrounded by white walls and simple wooden floors, a retro cartoon, 50’s swing back and bright turquoise couch provide visual stimuli.

Visualizer: Alexander Korobka   Think along finer lines. A myriad of small white cubby holes meet a stencil chandelier and thin-framed artworks, creating patterns that coalesce, not clash. A white fluffy rug and luscious-leaved tree provide a bit more substance.

Visualizer: Aleksandra Alekseenko   Designing for men? Think more texturing, less colour. Covering a TV feature wall, floor and industrial ceiling, this room’s plywood and concrete provide a minimalist base for furniture in black and grey.

Visualizer: AtViz   Black and white rooms can look ever so trendy. Striping a rug and cushions in striking monochrome lines, this lounge seamlessly merges Scandinavian-style chairs with abstract prints and silver spider chandeliers.

Visualizer: Concretica   Ever heard of Soviet minimalism? This apartment owns the look, with a stark feature wall and illustrative painted round. A warm brown chair and bottle of wine offer cordial invitation.

Visualizer: Int2 Architecture   Love the look of large blocks? Place them in your living room amidst large wooden panes, like in this minimalist space where lines of camera lights run free. Silver satin furniture adds contrast.

Visualizer: Xu Zhichao   Create your own safe haven. Lined with plaster and brick in white, a booth seat and flooring in timber, this minimalist retreat offers a cozy place to turn the pages. An adventurous ladder and one-plank wall shelves create decoration.

Architect: M3 Architecture   Minimalism can create the ever-so-classy. Against a backdrop of white and wood, interior curtains and block seating are warmed beside an inset fire.

Visualizer: Alexey Zelentsov   Make your ceiling your feature. The sloped rafters of this white space look down upon a low Chinese lantern, wide open window and block sofas in grey. A couple of window squares keep viewers’ interest.

Visualizer: Mateusz Kociolek   Dusty pink still has credence in minimalism. Turreted staircases play with speckled stone flooring and large Japanese windows in this modern apartment, drawn in the corner by a blushing set of sofas.

Visualizer: Lugerin Igor   Prefer a dose of green? Pea green steals the limelight in this room, a minimalist concoction of grey inset shelving, wooden panelling and creeping hover lights. A spot of pink provides a table.

Visualizer: Svoya Studio    A minimalist lounge can still harbour accessories. A white and wood canvas provides space for potted greenery, marbled artwork and differently-coloured cushions and mats.

Visualizer: Pavel Pisanko   Make it pretty in pastel. The pinks, blues and greens of this lounge create a dreamy aura against a backing in chiffon. A thin line of unique wine storage shelves keep a few tipples for later.

Visualizer: Jonas Lindström   Want it more structured? Have less chairs and tables, and make the background pure white. In this minimalist design, a Fiddle Leaf Fig and bevy of white pendants complete the picture.

Visualizer: Ksenia Mokhova   Love mirrors? This minimalist Scandinavian bedroom makes them a feature on its wall. Add in French windows, cubby seats and an audience of indoor house plants, and you have a magazine-ready interior that’s super easy to maintain.

Visualizer: Emil Dervish   Let darker furniture take the stage. Upon a setting of pure white, an L-shaped sofa, black and wooden stools and splayed fan seat sit under a sky of black lights.

Visualizer: Romet Mets   Make it a little warmer. Tan colours a wooden window frame, rug and dining table, making a monochrome interior a space for all the family.

Visualizer: Architektura Design   A lightly-patterned wallpaper can add subtle flavour. This light grey wall interests beside a striking black TV panel and several shades of fabric.

Visualizer: Maxim Nizovkin   Minimalist interiors can work by height. This lounge keeps its furniture low, with its charcoal block seating, wooden partition, plush ottomans and flat-screen TV. A forest view does the talking.

Architect: Lijo Reny   Like the look of this minimalist tropical living room? Recreate it for yourself, by using warm wooden furniture, a range of wide windows and a planted jungle outside. A bright orange cushion and indoor pots bring cohesion.

Visualizer: Seclusion Earth   The right lighting can make the minimalist brilliant. Indoor lights project patterns on an interior cube, while outside windows shine through thin wooden partitions. Common beige and eggshell hues ensure the space isn’t busy.

Designer: Fertility Design   Capture the elegance of Asia. This minimalist modern Asian living room uses pops of red to draw eyes to relaxed block seating, clever black shelving and a hearth of LEDs. A similarly-lined ceiling injects beauty in architecture.

40 Serenely Minimalist Bedrooms To Help You Embrace Simple Comforts

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2 Simple, Modern Homes with Simple, Modern Furnishings

Futuristic Minimalist Furniture

Two Modern, Minimalist Homes That Indulge in Lots of White

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How To Use Neutral Colors In Interior Design: 2 Examples That Show The Easy, Minimalist Way

40 Beautiful Black & White Bedroom Designs

[jeremystrele]

40 Gorgeously Minimalist Living Rooms That Find Substance in Simplicity

Minimalism. What does it mean to you? Does it say white walls, wooden floors and wide-open French windows? Does it look like block sofas, strong architecture, muted colours and patterning? Minimalism doesn’t have to mean choosing simple, boring or inexpensive furniture and accessories. Simply meaning ‘less is more’, minimalism can help focus your room on your desired mood or theme. Paint it pretty, with a row of pink couches set upon a white floor. Make it dramatic, with a striking beige and white line halving your room in two. Find substance in simplicity, with our top 40 gorgeous looks for minimalist living rooms and interiors.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov    White, eggshell and wood need not be boring. Making frames on the balcony and bookcase beyond, wood lets in light both from the outside world and LEDs within. Dining cubby chairs mirror their lines with their legs, while simple futon sofas provide a place to rest. See more of this interior here.

Visualizer: Oleg Trofimov   Want a little more contrast? These beige futon sofas, ottomans and chairs provide warmth beside a gramophone, baskets and log bench in darker shades. An electric fire brightens the atmosphere.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Let a line of LEDs do the talking. Bathed in moody charcoal, the feature wall, modern sofa and wide-span rug of this interior are centred on a below-TV line of lights. The rug’s geometric patterning ties in the look.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Halve your interior. This platform-raised design features pure white on one side, a room in mushroom on the other. Simple block furniture and comma-shaped cushions make colouring the hero.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Subtle texturing can make your lounge come alive. Alternating wood grains in the cabinets and floor mix with a spindly metal coffee table and plush sofa seating, creating areas that differ only ever so slightly. A stack of books adds a finishing touch.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Take your living room up a level. The architectural lines of this black, white and grey interior ensure the eye is distracted while the hues remain simple. Exposed brick walls, a cotton couch and wooden flooring create difference with texture. See the complete interior here.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Not sure how to house your kitchen and lounge? Take a cue from this shared space. Using light grey flooring to connect the two, the lounge remains white, bright and rectangular; the kitchen bathed in concrete grey. Under-cabinet LEDs keep the kitchen’s light breathing, while a black dining set harks to the lounge with a vase of white florals.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov   Want to introduce more colour? This minimalist space ties white, black, grey and taupe together for an ultra-modern look. A light-infused balcony brings brightness to the home, while lines of ceiling lights and a faux deer head add character.

Visualizer: KUOO Architects   Play with shape and form. The rectangular lines of this lounge’s sofa, rug and cabinets meet three coffee table spheres and Chinese lantern lights. Teardrop shapes shine through in glowing lightbulbs and sprig-bearing vases.

Designer: DNA Concept Design   Photographer: Hey!Cheese Photography    Designing for an apartment? Minimalist hues can add the illusion of space. These light greys, whites and woods are framed by lines between wall cabinets, ceiling contours and wooden floor panelling. Black joins the party in a flat screen TV and sliding door frames, as an Eames Bird replica keeps watch.

Visualizer: Karolina Krac   Create more room by hollowing out furniture. This minimalist living room does it well, with lifted sofas and cabinets, a white ringed chandelier, and an opposing mirror reflecting the view. Muted colouring allows space for potted greenery.

Visualizer: Modom Studio   Make your living room dramatic. This décor dominates with striking black camera lights, a TV, filigree light pendants and a rock-star leather couch. See more of this film-set style interior here.

Visualizer: ARTSTUDIO Design   Want a space that’s purely monochrome? The stark black wall, suede L-sofa and stencilled coffee table of this bachelor pad look less moody beside large panels of white. Two unique floor lamps provide height beside an artwork.

Visualizer: Tamizo Architects   Worried your black and white living room might look too extreme? Mix black with navy ceilings, rugs and curtains, as per this interesting interior. Paired with black hover lights, joinery and artwork, the room’s dark panels are brightened beside walls in white and a burst of green fernery.

Visualizer: 365 Design   Make scenery a key part of your interior. The wide open windows and sheer chiffon curtaining of this monochrome space open up a wall of hanging creepers and manicured hedges. Metallics in circular pendants and a sofa add flair, while a tiled floor in marble lines it with luxury.

Architect: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates   Stick to your building blocks. Based on a concrete floor, the only feature of this minimalist living room is a TV in black.

Visualizer: PIX 3D STUDIO   Black and white photographs can make the minimalist human. Set on a stark white wall and painted floor, three captured faces gesture amidst a ruffled rug, reclined seating and unique coffee tables.

Architect: VAVO Studio   Try something more Scandinavian. A light wooden floor, muted seating and tables afford visual space for hipster monochrome prints and some jazzy lime cushions.

Architect: Ford Design   Looking for more character? This funky lounge is a great example of pop art minimalism. Surrounded by white walls and simple wooden floors, a retro cartoon, 50’s swing back and bright turquoise couch provide visual stimuli.

Visualizer: Alexander Korobka   Think along finer lines. A myriad of small white cubby holes meet a stencil chandelier and thin-framed artworks, creating patterns that coalesce, not clash. A white fluffy rug and luscious-leaved tree provide a bit more substance.

Visualizer: Aleksandra Alekseenko   Designing for men? Think more texturing, less colour. Covering a TV feature wall, floor and industrial ceiling, this room’s plywood and concrete provide a minimalist base for furniture in black and grey.

Visualizer: AtViz   Black and white rooms can look ever so trendy. Striping a rug and cushions in striking monochrome lines, this lounge seamlessly merges Scandinavian-style chairs with abstract prints and silver spider chandeliers.

Visualizer: Concretica   Ever heard of Soviet minimalism? This apartment owns the look, with a stark feature wall and illustrative painted round. A warm brown chair and bottle of wine offer cordial invitation.

Visualizer: Int2 Architecture   Love the look of large blocks? Place them in your living room amidst large wooden panes, like in this minimalist space where lines of camera lights run free. Silver satin furniture adds contrast.

Visualizer: Xu Zhichao   Create your own safe haven. Lined with plaster and brick in white, a booth seat and flooring in timber, this minimalist retreat offers a cozy place to turn the pages. An adventurous ladder and one-plank wall shelves create decoration.

Architect: M3 Architecture   Minimalism can create the ever-so-classy. Against a backdrop of white and wood, interior curtains and block seating are warmed beside an inset fire.

Visualizer: Alexey Zelentsov   Make your ceiling your feature. The sloped rafters of this white space look down upon a low Chinese lantern, wide open window and block sofas in grey. A couple of window squares keep viewers’ interest.

Visualizer: Mateusz Kociolek   Dusty pink still has credence in minimalism. Turreted staircases play with speckled stone flooring and large Japanese windows in this modern apartment, drawn in the corner by a blushing set of sofas.

Visualizer: Lugerin Igor   Prefer a dose of green? Pea green steals the limelight in this room, a minimalist concoction of grey inset shelving, wooden panelling and creeping hover lights. A spot of pink provides a table.

Visualizer: Svoya Studio    A minimalist lounge can still harbour accessories. A white and wood canvas provides space for potted greenery, marbled artwork and differently-coloured cushions and mats.

Visualizer: Pavel Pisanko   Make it pretty in pastel. The pinks, blues and greens of this lounge create a dreamy aura against a backing in chiffon. A thin line of unique wine storage shelves keep a few tipples for later.

Visualizer: Jonas Lindström   Want it more structured? Have less chairs and tables, and make the background pure white. In this minimalist design, a Fiddle Leaf Fig and bevy of white pendants complete the picture.

Visualizer: Ksenia Mokhova   Love mirrors? This minimalist Scandinavian bedroom makes them a feature on its wall. Add in French windows, cubby seats and an audience of indoor house plants, and you have a magazine-ready interior that’s super easy to maintain.

Visualizer: Emil Dervish   Let darker furniture take the stage. Upon a setting of pure white, an L-shaped sofa, black and wooden stools and splayed fan seat sit under a sky of black lights.

Visualizer: Romet Mets   Make it a little warmer. Tan colours a wooden window frame, rug and dining table, making a monochrome interior a space for all the family.

Visualizer: Architektura Design   A lightly-patterned wallpaper can add subtle flavour. This light grey wall interests beside a striking black TV panel and several shades of fabric.

Visualizer: Maxim Nizovkin   Minimalist interiors can work by height. This lounge keeps its furniture low, with its charcoal block seating, wooden partition, plush ottomans and flat-screen TV. A forest view does the talking.

Architect: Lijo Reny   Like the look of this minimalist tropical living room? Recreate it for yourself, by using warm wooden furniture, a range of wide windows and a planted jungle outside. A bright orange cushion and indoor pots bring cohesion.

Visualizer: Seclusion Earth   The right lighting can make the minimalist brilliant. Indoor lights project patterns on an interior cube, while outside windows shine through thin wooden partitions. Common beige and eggshell hues ensure the space isn’t busy.

Designer: Fertility Design   Capture the elegance of Asia. This minimalist modern Asian living room uses pops of red to draw eyes to relaxed block seating, clever black shelving and a hearth of LEDs. A similarly-lined ceiling injects beauty in architecture.

40 Serenely Minimalist Bedrooms To Help You Embrace Simple Comforts

Related Posts:

2 Simple, Modern Homes with Simple, Modern Furnishings

Futuristic Minimalist Furniture

Two Modern, Minimalist Homes That Indulge in Lots of White

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How To Use Neutral Colors In Interior Design: 2 Examples That Show The Easy, Minimalist Way

40 Beautiful Black & White Bedroom Designs

[garagedoorshampshire]

40 Gorgeously Minimalist Living Rooms That Find Substance in Simplicity

Minimalism. What does it mean to you? Does it say white walls, wooden floors and wide-open French windows? Does it look like block sofas, strong architecture, muted colours and patterning? Minimalism doesn’t have to mean choosing simple, boring or inexpensive furniture and accessories. Simply meaning ‘less is more’, minimalism can help focus your room on your desired mood or theme. Paint it pretty, with a row of pink couches set upon a white floor. Make it dramatic, with a striking beige and white line halving your room in two. Find substance in simplicity, with our top 40 gorgeous looks for minimalist living rooms and interiors.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov    White, eggshell and wood need not be boring. Making frames on the balcony and bookcase beyond, wood lets in light both from the outside world and LEDs within. Dining cubby chairs mirror their lines with their legs, while simple futon sofas provide a place to rest. See more of this interior here.

Visualizer: Oleg Trofimov   Want a little more contrast? These beige futon sofas, ottomans and chairs provide warmth beside a gramophone, baskets and log bench in darker shades. An electric fire brightens the atmosphere.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Let a line of LEDs do the talking. Bathed in moody charcoal, the feature wall, modern sofa and wide-span rug of this interior are centred on a below-TV line of lights. The rug’s geometric patterning ties in the look.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Halve your interior. This platform-raised design features pure white on one side, a room in mushroom on the other. Simple block furniture and comma-shaped cushions make colouring the hero.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Subtle texturing can make your lounge come alive. Alternating wood grains in the cabinets and floor mix with a spindly metal coffee table and plush sofa seating, creating areas that differ only ever so slightly. A stack of books adds a finishing touch.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Take your living room up a level. The architectural lines of this black, white and grey interior ensure the eye is distracted while the hues remain simple. Exposed brick walls, a cotton couch and wooden flooring create difference with texture. See the complete interior here.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Not sure how to house your kitchen and lounge? Take a cue from this shared space. Using light grey flooring to connect the two, the lounge remains white, bright and rectangular; the kitchen bathed in concrete grey. Under-cabinet LEDs keep the kitchen’s light breathing, while a black dining set harks to the lounge with a vase of white florals.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov   Want to introduce more colour? This minimalist space ties white, black, grey and taupe together for an ultra-modern look. A light-infused balcony brings brightness to the home, while lines of ceiling lights and a faux deer head add character.

Visualizer: KUOO Architects   Play with shape and form. The rectangular lines of this lounge’s sofa, rug and cabinets meet three coffee table spheres and Chinese lantern lights. Teardrop shapes shine through in glowing lightbulbs and sprig-bearing vases.

Designer: DNA Concept Design   Photographer: Hey!Cheese Photography    Designing for an apartment? Minimalist hues can add the illusion of space. These light greys, whites and woods are framed by lines between wall cabinets, ceiling contours and wooden floor panelling. Black joins the party in a flat screen TV and sliding door frames, as an Eames Bird replica keeps watch.

Visualizer: Karolina Krac   Create more room by hollowing out furniture. This minimalist living room does it well, with lifted sofas and cabinets, a white ringed chandelier, and an opposing mirror reflecting the view. Muted colouring allows space for potted greenery.

Visualizer: Modom Studio   Make your living room dramatic. This décor dominates with striking black camera lights, a TV, filigree light pendants and a rock-star leather couch. See more of this film-set style interior here.

Visualizer: ARTSTUDIO Design   Want a space that’s purely monochrome? The stark black wall, suede L-sofa and stencilled coffee table of this bachelor pad look less moody beside large panels of white. Two unique floor lamps provide height beside an artwork.

Visualizer: Tamizo Architects   Worried your black and white living room might look too extreme? Mix black with navy ceilings, rugs and curtains, as per this interesting interior. Paired with black hover lights, joinery and artwork, the room’s dark panels are brightened beside walls in white and a burst of green fernery.

Visualizer: 365 Design   Make scenery a key part of your interior. The wide open windows and sheer chiffon curtaining of this monochrome space open up a wall of hanging creepers and manicured hedges. Metallics in circular pendants and a sofa add flair, while a tiled floor in marble lines it with luxury.

Architect: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates   Stick to your building blocks. Based on a concrete floor, the only feature of this minimalist living room is a TV in black.

Visualizer: PIX 3D STUDIO   Black and white photographs can make the minimalist human. Set on a stark white wall and painted floor, three captured faces gesture amidst a ruffled rug, reclined seating and unique coffee tables.

Architect: VAVO Studio   Try something more Scandinavian. A light wooden floor, muted seating and tables afford visual space for hipster monochrome prints and some jazzy lime cushions.

Architect: Ford Design   Looking for more character? This funky lounge is a great example of pop art minimalism. Surrounded by white walls and simple wooden floors, a retro cartoon, 50’s swing back and bright turquoise couch provide visual stimuli.

Visualizer: Alexander Korobka   Think along finer lines. A myriad of small white cubby holes meet a stencil chandelier and thin-framed artworks, creating patterns that coalesce, not clash. A white fluffy rug and luscious-leaved tree provide a bit more substance.

Visualizer: Aleksandra Alekseenko   Designing for men? Think more texturing, less colour. Covering a TV feature wall, floor and industrial ceiling, this room’s plywood and concrete provide a minimalist base for furniture in black and grey.

Visualizer: AtViz   Black and white rooms can look ever so trendy. Striping a rug and cushions in striking monochrome lines, this lounge seamlessly merges Scandinavian-style chairs with abstract prints and silver spider chandeliers.

Visualizer: Concretica   Ever heard of Soviet minimalism? This apartment owns the look, with a stark feature wall and illustrative painted round. A warm brown chair and bottle of wine offer cordial invitation.

Visualizer: Int2 Architecture   Love the look of large blocks? Place them in your living room amidst large wooden panes, like in this minimalist space where lines of camera lights run free. Silver satin furniture adds contrast.

Visualizer: Xu Zhichao   Create your own safe haven. Lined with plaster and brick in white, a booth seat and flooring in timber, this minimalist retreat offers a cozy place to turn the pages. An adventurous ladder and one-plank wall shelves create decoration.

Architect: M3 Architecture   Minimalism can create the ever-so-classy. Against a backdrop of white and wood, interior curtains and block seating are warmed beside an inset fire.

Visualizer: Alexey Zelentsov   Make your ceiling your feature. The sloped rafters of this white space look down upon a low Chinese lantern, wide open window and block sofas in grey. A couple of window squares keep viewers’ interest.

Visualizer: Mateusz Kociolek   Dusty pink still has credence in minimalism. Turreted staircases play with speckled stone flooring and large Japanese windows in this modern apartment, drawn in the corner by a blushing set of sofas.

Visualizer: Lugerin Igor   Prefer a dose of green? Pea green steals the limelight in this room, a minimalist concoction of grey inset shelving, wooden panelling and creeping hover lights. A spot of pink provides a table.

Visualizer: Svoya Studio    A minimalist lounge can still harbour accessories. A white and wood canvas provides space for potted greenery, marbled artwork and differently-coloured cushions and mats.

Visualizer: Pavel Pisanko   Make it pretty in pastel. The pinks, blues and greens of this lounge create a dreamy aura against a backing in chiffon. A thin line of unique wine storage shelves keep a few tipples for later.

Visualizer: Jonas Lindström   Want it more structured? Have less chairs and tables, and make the background pure white. In this minimalist design, a Fiddle Leaf Fig and bevy of white pendants complete the picture.

Visualizer: Ksenia Mokhova   Love mirrors? This minimalist Scandinavian bedroom makes them a feature on its wall. Add in French windows, cubby seats and an audience of indoor house plants, and you have a magazine-ready interior that’s super easy to maintain.

Visualizer: Emil Dervish   Let darker furniture take the stage. Upon a setting of pure white, an L-shaped sofa, black and wooden stools and splayed fan seat sit under a sky of black lights.

Visualizer: Romet Mets   Make it a little warmer. Tan colours a wooden window frame, rug and dining table, making a monochrome interior a space for all the family.

Visualizer: Architektura Design   A lightly-patterned wallpaper can add subtle flavour. This light grey wall interests beside a striking black TV panel and several shades of fabric.

Visualizer: Maxim Nizovkin   Minimalist interiors can work by height. This lounge keeps its furniture low, with its charcoal block seating, wooden partition, plush ottomans and flat-screen TV. A forest view does the talking.

Architect: Lijo Reny   Like the look of this minimalist tropical living room? Recreate it for yourself, by using warm wooden furniture, a range of wide windows and a planted jungle outside. A bright orange cushion and indoor pots bring cohesion.

Visualizer: Seclusion Earth   The right lighting can make the minimalist brilliant. Indoor lights project patterns on an interior cube, while outside windows shine through thin wooden partitions. Common beige and eggshell hues ensure the space isn’t busy.

Designer: Fertility Design   Capture the elegance of Asia. This minimalist modern Asian living room uses pops of red to draw eyes to relaxed block seating, clever black shelving and a hearth of LEDs. A similarly-lined ceiling injects beauty in architecture.

40 Serenely Minimalist Bedrooms To Help You Embrace Simple Comforts

Related Posts:

2 Simple, Modern Homes with Simple, Modern Furnishings

Futuristic Minimalist Furniture

Two Modern, Minimalist Homes That Indulge in Lots of White

Six Scandinavian Interiors That Make The Lived-in Look Inspirational

How To Use Neutral Colors In Interior Design: 2 Examples That Show The Easy, Minimalist Way

40 Beautiful Black & White Bedroom Designs

from Interior Design Ideas http://www.home-designing.com/minimalist-style-living-room-interior-designs-with-minimalist-furniture

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Steve Keister’s Cargo Cult of One

Steve Keister, “Olmecoid Face Plaque” (2017), glaze/ceramic, acrylic/wood, found object, 14 x 20 x 12 inches (all images courtesy Mitchell Algus gallery)

Many people cannot wrap their head around the fact that Steve Keister’s sculptures can be divided into two groups that appear to have nothing to do with each other. I think it would be less of a problem if we begin with the understanding that Keister has been outlier since the beginning of his career in the late 1970s — no matter what the reception — and that the fact that he has never fit in makes him a unique, interesting, curious, idiosyncratic, baffling, and challenging artist.

The first thing that makes Keister an outlier is that he made sculpture that you didn’t back into, but which you bumped your head against. At least that is what I did one evening, when I stood up from the kitchen table of the legendary collectors, Herb and Dorothy Vogel, and smacked my head against one of Keister’s suspended, angular sculptures, or what he wittily called USOs (Unidentified Suspended Objects), which he first exhibited in the late 1970s. Herb and Dorothy were not so tall so for them it was never problem.

Steve Keister, “Stingray” (1986), spandex, epoxy paint, epoxy resin, fiberglass, bondo, 65 x 44 x 38 inches

I remembered that clunk when I went to see Steve Keister: Post Columbia: New Ceramic Reliefs and Fiberglass Sculpture from the 1980s at Mitchell Algus Gallery (April 1 – May 7, 2017). I am not sure why I remembered that evening but I think it might have to with receiving another knock on my noggin — figuratively speaking — when I saw three works from the late 1980s and ceramic reliefs from the last three years. It was as if suddenly everything that Keister has made over the past forty years made a different kind of sense that I need to unpack, which is one reason for writing this review.

When Keister first moved away from his USOs, he also changed his materials and methods: he went from using wood, paint, fluorescent paint, and different materials, such as fake fur, leather, sheets of colored plastic, and rubber, to partially cover his painted planar surfaces to using spandex, fiberglass, bondo, and a found object, usually the tubular frame of a modernist chair.

The change caused the planar geometry to give way to sleek amorphic forms with gritty surfaces. The Spandex, reinforced by fiberglass, became a tightly stretched skin, resulting in a sharp-edged, open form twisting and stretching in space. While the early ones were suspended from the ceiling, suggesting continuity with his USOs, the change in processes and the incorporation of the metal frames of modernist chairs by Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames, and others allowed him the opportunity to place the sculptures on the floor or attach them to the wall.

In the first body of work, there were allusions to Russian Suprematism and Kasimir Malevich’s love of airplanes. By combining planar forms and fake fur, Keister acknowledged the failure of that utopian dream. From the outset it was clear that Keister was not interested in purity, and that he had an uncanny way of bringing together high art and low materials. When he began using chairs as the basis, the focus shifted. What was rising from the tubular frame? Was this what the human body will become? Has production effectively displaced us or made us into an appendage? What is the relation between art and home design?

Steve Keister, “Dancing Jaguar” (2017), glazed ceramic, acrylic wood, 14 x 15 x 7.5 inches

And then in the mid-1990s, Keister made another turn, which required he use very different materials, as well as learn new processes. If the first move seemed logical, the second one was a leap that ruptured any understanding we might have previously formulated about this artist’s work. Keister’s leap was, to use Sol Lewitt’s description of a Conceptual artist, “mystic:” it seemed to come out of nowhere. As with the earlier bodies of work, the sculptures were ­— technically speaking — the result of the artist’s merging of new materials (commercial Styrofoam packaging, its bulky containers) with a completely different subject. For more than twenty years, Keister has been preoccupied with pre-Columbian forms and figures.

On one level, you could say that instead of contemplating the future, and all our attempts to envision what it might be like, Keister started looking at the past, but I think that only tells a small part of the story. What UFOs — from which USOs is surely derived — and pre-Columbian forms have in common is their otherness. No matter what we do — including destroying their civilization – we cannot assimilate them. I once read that Aztecs were one of the few cultures that had no jokes, that fate was everything, and there was no alternative to what happened. Keister seems to be imagining otherwise.

In moving from suspended forms to figures that recall pre-Columbian art, Keister went from having no geography (or place to stand or subsequently sit), to making up the geography (or landscape) he inhabits. At the same time, and this seems to me essential to understanding Keister’s work, it is a geography that is both alien and made of discards: and there is something millenarian about it.

Steve Keister, “Ometeotl” (2016), glaze ceramic, 9 x 6.5 x 25 inches

Keister’s inventiveness shines through in his use of Styrofoam — a ubiquitous non-biodegradable material that is poisoning the earth and seas — as the molds for his ceramic sculptures. In “Ometeol” (2016), which is on the wall of the alcove spanning the front of the gallery and facing into it, a presiding figure, it is easy to see that the artist has transformed Styrofoam packaging into a squat ceramic figure. The grayish-green surface is mottled and it has horizontal slits for eyes. The mouth is a brown, rectangular ceramic ridge inserted into a shallow cavity in the bisected, symmetrical body. You see both what the form once was and what it has become, a kind of double vision that is part of the pleasure “Ometeol” embodies. From the examples I have been able to find, Keister’s figure evokes but does not at look at all like Ometeol. I am not sure how he does this but it is further evidence of his inventiveness.

Keister makes the sculptures by fitting together different pieces. While Ometeol was made of a handful of pieces, “Bat III” (2015) was assembled out of dozens of distinct ceramic pieces, each glazed a particular color, sometimes two. Again, you drift between the sources and the outcome, while contemplating a figure that is absent anything that makes it friendlier: it is a bat and it is other, and here is something menacing about it. One question came up while looking at it: what does it mean to want to put a bat with its wings unfolded in your house?  Their otherness infuses them with a power that Keister makes further apparent through his use of irregular abstract forms. In their otherness, they are strange, funny, and aloof. We can neither humanize nor domesticate them, which is what makes them so quietly powerful. Part of their power owes something to the fact that the Aztecs were heavily involved with psychoactive substances, that they used psilocybin, peyote, and morning glory plants. They even had a word for this, monanacahuia, which means to “mushroom oneself”.

Steve Keister, “Night Flight” (2016), glaze/ceramic, acrylic/wood, found object, 17 x 17 x 18 inches

Earlier, I said that was something millenarian about Keister’s sculptures. Another name for millenariasm is cargo cult, which is often a tribal society’s response to the encroachment of a technologically advanced culture upon them. Cargo cults are an attempt to gain the material wealth of the advanced society through magical means. The encounter between a tribal society and a technologically advanced is what happened when Hernan Cortés, with the aid of various rivals, encountered the Aztecs, led by Moctezuma II, but the latter never became millenarian.

Wiped out by treachery, famine, small pox, and technically superior weapons, the Aztec empire was destroyed. This devastation was presaged by numerous omens including one that foretold the coming of conquerors from distant lands that rode on the backs of animals; they would vanquish and rule the Aztecs. And in some way the Aztec nobility knew this when the first reports of Cortés and his small army’s landing reached them. If there is no alternative to fate, then any sign of it seals the outcome. They saw their annihilation and they embraced it.

Keister has decided to tell a different story, one in which traces of the pre-Columbian world both persists and transforms itself. It turns the poison of our Styrofoam packaging into household gods, figures that remain other and remote, even as they sit on our walls looking at us with indecipherable expressions. In assembling them out of many parts, and, in some cases placing them within a tubular frame, they regain some semblance of their psychic power. In making these figures, Keister imagines a different outcome to what happened, reminds us that the story is perhaps not over. At the same time, the wall-mounted pieces bring together art and home design. We invite these gods into our house even though we can never domesticate them or make them our own. They are sentinels from another world. The fact that these figures might have first emerged in a drug-induced vision should be lost on us. The fact that Keister’s figures are assembled out of detritus clues us into his preternatural sense of the disposables of our everyday world.

Steve Keister: Post Columbia: New Ceramic Reliefs and Fiberglass Sculpture from the 1980s continues at Mitchell Algus Gallery (132 Delancey Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through May 7.

The post Steve Keister’s Cargo Cult of One appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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40 Gorgeously Minimalist Living Rooms That Find Substance in Simplicity

Minimalism. What does it mean to you? Does it say white walls, wooden floors and wide-open French windows? Does it look like block sofas, strong architecture, muted colours and patterning? Minimalism doesn’t have to mean choosing simple, boring or inexpensive furniture and accessories. Simply meaning ‘less is more’, minimalism can help focus your room on your desired mood or theme. Paint it pretty, with a row of pink couches set upon a white floor. Make it dramatic, with a striking beige and white line halving your room in two. Find substance in simplicity, with our top 40 gorgeous looks for minimalist living rooms and interiors.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov    White, eggshell and wood need not be boring. Making frames on the balcony and bookcase beyond, wood lets in light both from the outside world and LEDs within. Dining cubby chairs mirror their lines with their legs, while simple futon sofas provide a place to rest. See more of this interior here.

Visualizer: Oleg Trofimov   Want a little more contrast? These beige futon sofas, ottomans and chairs provide warmth beside a gramophone, baskets and log bench in darker shades. An electric fire brightens the atmosphere.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Let a line of LEDs do the talking. Bathed in moody charcoal, the feature wall, modern sofa and wide-span rug of this interior are centred on a below-TV line of lights. The rug’s geometric patterning ties in the look.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Halve your interior. This platform-raised design features pure white on one side, a room in mushroom on the other. Simple block furniture and comma-shaped cushions make colouring the hero.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Subtle texturing can make your lounge come alive. Alternating wood grains in the cabinets and floor mix with a spindly metal coffee table and plush sofa seating, creating areas that differ only ever so slightly. A stack of books adds a finishing touch.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Take your living room up a level. The architectural lines of this black, white and grey interior ensure the eye is distracted while the hues remain simple. Exposed brick walls, a cotton couch and wooden flooring create difference with texture. See the complete interior here.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Not sure how to house your kitchen and lounge? Take a cue from this shared space. Using light grey flooring to connect the two, the lounge remains white, bright and rectangular; the kitchen bathed in concrete grey. Under-cabinet LEDs keep the kitchen’s light breathing, while a black dining set harks to the lounge with a vase of white florals.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov   Want to introduce more colour? This minimalist space ties white, black, grey and taupe together for an ultra-modern look. A light-infused balcony brings brightness to the home, while lines of ceiling lights and a faux deer head add character.

Visualizer: KUOO Architects   Play with shape and form. The rectangular lines of this lounge’s sofa, rug and cabinets meet three coffee table spheres and Chinese lantern lights. Teardrop shapes shine through in glowing lightbulbs and sprig-bearing vases.

Designer: DNA Concept Design   Photographer: Hey!Cheese Photography    Designing for an apartment? Minimalist hues can add the illusion of space. These light greys, whites and woods are framed by lines between wall cabinets, ceiling contours and wooden floor panelling. Black joins the party in a flat screen TV and sliding door frames, as an Eames Bird replica keeps watch.

Visualizer: Karolina Krac   Create more room by hollowing out furniture. This minimalist living room does it well, with lifted sofas and cabinets, a white ringed chandelier, and an opposing mirror reflecting the view. Muted colouring allows space for potted greenery.

Visualizer: Modom Studio   Make your living room dramatic. This décor dominates with striking black camera lights, a TV, filigree light pendants and a rock-star leather couch. See more of this film-set style interior here.

Visualizer: ARTSTUDIO Design   Want a space that’s purely monochrome? The stark black wall, suede L-sofa and stencilled coffee table of this bachelor pad look less moody beside large panels of white. Two unique floor lamps provide height beside an artwork.

Visualizer: Tamizo Architects   Worried your black and white living room might look too extreme? Mix black with navy ceilings, rugs and curtains, as per this interesting interior. Paired with black hover lights, joinery and artwork, the room’s dark panels are brightened beside walls in white and a burst of green fernery.

Visualizer: 365 Design   Make scenery a key part of your interior. The wide open windows and sheer chiffon curtaining of this monochrome space open up a wall of hanging creepers and manicured hedges. Metallics in circular pendants and a sofa add flair, while a tiled floor in marble lines it with luxury.

Architect: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates   Stick to your building blocks. Based on a concrete floor, the only feature of this minimalist living room is a TV in black.

Visualizer: PIX 3D STUDIO   Black and white photographs can make the minimalist human. Set on a stark white wall and painted floor, three captured faces gesture amidst a ruffled rug, reclined seating and unique coffee tables.

Architect: VAVO Studio   Try something more Scandinavian. A light wooden floor, muted seating and tables afford visual space for hipster monochrome prints and some jazzy lime cushions.

Architect: Ford Design   Looking for more character? This funky lounge is a great example of pop art minimalism. Surrounded by white walls and simple wooden floors, a retro cartoon, 50’s swing back and bright turquoise couch provide visual stimuli.

Visualizer: Alexander Korobka   Think along finer lines. A myriad of small white cubby holes meet a stencil chandelier and thin-framed artworks, creating patterns that coalesce, not clash. A white fluffy rug and luscious-leaved tree provide a bit more substance.

Visualizer: Aleksandra Alekseenko   Designing for men? Think more texturing, less colour. Covering a TV feature wall, floor and industrial ceiling, this room’s plywood and concrete provide a minimalist base for furniture in black and grey.

Visualizer: AtViz   Black and white rooms can look ever so trendy. Striping a rug and cushions in striking monochrome lines, this lounge seamlessly merges Scandinavian-style chairs with abstract prints and silver spider chandeliers.

Visualizer: Concretica   Ever heard of Soviet minimalism? This apartment owns the look, with a stark feature wall and illustrative painted round. A warm brown chair and bottle of wine offer cordial invitation.

Visualizer: Int2 Architecture   Love the look of large blocks? Place them in your living room amidst large wooden panes, like in this minimalist space where lines of camera lights run free. Silver satin furniture adds contrast.

Visualizer: Xu Zhichao   Create your own safe haven. Lined with plaster and brick in white, a booth seat and flooring in timber, this minimalist retreat offers a cozy place to turn the pages. An adventurous ladder and one-plank wall shelves create decoration.

Architect: M3 Architecture   Minimalism can create the ever-so-classy. Against a backdrop of white and wood, interior curtains and block seating are warmed beside an inset fire.

Visualizer: Alexey Zelentsov   Make your ceiling your feature. The sloped rafters of this white space look down upon a low Chinese lantern, wide open window and block sofas in grey. A couple of window squares keep viewers’ interest.

Visualizer: Mateusz Kociolek   Dusty pink still has credence in minimalism. Turreted staircases play with speckled stone flooring and large Japanese windows in this modern apartment, drawn in the corner by a blushing set of sofas.

Visualizer: Lugerin Igor   Prefer a dose of green? Pea green steals the limelight in this room, a minimalist concoction of grey inset shelving, wooden panelling and creeping hover lights. A spot of pink provides a table.

Visualizer: Svoya Studio    A minimalist lounge can still harbour accessories. A white and wood canvas provides space for potted greenery, marbled artwork and differently-coloured cushions and mats.

Visualizer: Pavel Pisanko   Make it pretty in pastel. The pinks, blues and greens of this lounge create a dreamy aura against a backing in chiffon. A thin line of unique wine storage shelves keep a few tipples for later.

Visualizer: Jonas Lindström   Want it more structured? Have less chairs and tables, and make the background pure white. In this minimalist design, a Fiddle Leaf Fig and bevy of white pendants complete the picture.

Visualizer: Ksenia Mokhova   Love mirrors? This minimalist Scandinavian bedroom makes them a feature on its wall. Add in French windows, cubby seats and an audience of indoor house plants, and you have a magazine-ready interior that’s super easy to maintain.

Visualizer: Emil Dervish   Let darker furniture take the stage. Upon a setting of pure white, an L-shaped sofa, black and wooden stools and splayed fan seat sit under a sky of black lights.

Visualizer: Romet Mets   Make it a little warmer. Tan colours a wooden window frame, rug and dining table, making a monochrome interior a space for all the family.

Visualizer: Architektura Design   A lightly-patterned wallpaper can add subtle flavour. This light grey wall interests beside a striking black TV panel and several shades of fabric.

Visualizer: Maxim Nizovkin   Minimalist interiors can work by height. This lounge keeps its furniture low, with its charcoal block seating, wooden partition, plush ottomans and flat-screen TV. A forest view does the talking.

Architect: Lijo Reny   Like the look of this minimalist tropical living room? Recreate it for yourself, by using warm wooden furniture, a range of wide windows and a planted jungle outside. A bright orange cushion and indoor pots bring cohesion.

Visualizer: Seclusion Earth   The right lighting can make the minimalist brilliant. Indoor lights project patterns on an interior cube, while outside windows shine through thin wooden partitions. Common beige and eggshell hues ensure the space isn’t busy.

Designer: Fertility Design   Capture the elegance of Asia. This minimalist modern Asian living room uses pops of red to draw eyes to relaxed block seating, clever black shelving and a hearth of LEDs. A similarly-lined ceiling injects beauty in architecture.

40 Serenely Minimalist Bedrooms To Help You Embrace Simple Comforts

Related Posts:

2 Simple, Modern Homes with Simple, Modern Furnishings

Futuristic Minimalist Furniture

Two Modern, Minimalist Homes That Indulge in Lots of White

Six Scandinavian Interiors That Make The Lived-in Look Inspirational

How To Use Neutral Colors In Interior Design: 2 Examples That Show The Easy, Minimalist Way

40 Beautiful Black & White Bedroom Designs

[drewebowden66]

40 Gorgeously Minimalist Living Rooms That Find Substance in Simplicity

Minimalism. What does it mean to you? Does it say white walls, wooden floors and wide-open French windows? Does it look like block sofas, strong architecture, muted colours and patterning? Minimalism doesn’t have to mean choosing simple, boring or inexpensive furniture and accessories. Simply meaning ‘less is more’, minimalism can help focus your room on your desired mood or theme. Paint it pretty, with a row of pink couches set upon a white floor. Make it dramatic, with a striking beige and white line halving your room in two. Find substance in simplicity, with our top 40 gorgeous looks for minimalist living rooms and interiors.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov    White, eggshell and wood need not be boring. Making frames on the balcony and bookcase beyond, wood lets in light both from the outside world and LEDs within. Dining cubby chairs mirror their lines with their legs, while simple futon sofas provide a place to rest. See more of this interior here.

Visualizer: Oleg Trofimov   Want a little more contrast? These beige futon sofas, ottomans and chairs provide warmth beside a gramophone, baskets and log bench in darker shades. An electric fire brightens the atmosphere.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Let a line of LEDs do the talking. Bathed in moody charcoal, the feature wall, modern sofa and wide-span rug of this interior are centred on a below-TV line of lights. The rug’s geometric patterning ties in the look.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Halve your interior. This platform-raised design features pure white on one side, a room in mushroom on the other. Simple block furniture and comma-shaped cushions make colouring the hero.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Subtle texturing can make your lounge come alive. Alternating wood grains in the cabinets and floor mix with a spindly metal coffee table and plush sofa seating, creating areas that differ only ever so slightly. A stack of books adds a finishing touch.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura    Take your living room up a level. The architectural lines of this black, white and grey interior ensure the eye is distracted while the hues remain simple. Exposed brick walls, a cotton couch and wooden flooring create difference with texture. See the complete interior here.

Visualizer: Oporski Architektura   Not sure how to house your kitchen and lounge? Take a cue from this shared space. Using light grey flooring to connect the two, the lounge remains white, bright and rectangular; the kitchen bathed in concrete grey. Under-cabinet LEDs keep the kitchen’s light breathing, while a black dining set harks to the lounge with a vase of white florals.

Visualizer: Igor Sirotov   Want to introduce more colour? This minimalist space ties white, black, grey and taupe together for an ultra-modern look. A light-infused balcony brings brightness to the home, while lines of ceiling lights and a faux deer head add character.

Visualizer: KUOO Architects   Play with shape and form. The rectangular lines of this lounge’s sofa, rug and cabinets meet three coffee table spheres and Chinese lantern lights. Teardrop shapes shine through in glowing lightbulbs and sprig-bearing vases.

Designer: DNA Concept Design   Photographer: Hey!Cheese Photography    Designing for an apartment? Minimalist hues can add the illusion of space. These light greys, whites and woods are framed by lines between wall cabinets, ceiling contours and wooden floor panelling. Black joins the party in a flat screen TV and sliding door frames, as an Eames Bird replica keeps watch.

Visualizer: Karolina Krac   Create more room by hollowing out furniture. This minimalist living room does it well, with lifted sofas and cabinets, a white ringed chandelier, and an opposing mirror reflecting the view. Muted colouring allows space for potted greenery.

Visualizer: Modom Studio   Make your living room dramatic. This décor dominates with striking black camera lights, a TV, filigree light pendants and a rock-star leather couch. See more of this film-set style interior here.

Visualizer: ARTSTUDIO Design   Want a space that’s purely monochrome? The stark black wall, suede L-sofa and stencilled coffee table of this bachelor pad look less moody beside large panels of white. Two unique floor lamps provide height beside an artwork.

Visualizer: Tamizo Architects   Worried your black and white living room might look too extreme? Mix black with navy ceilings, rugs and curtains, as per this interesting interior. Paired with black hover lights, joinery and artwork, the room’s dark panels are brightened beside walls in white and a burst of green fernery.

Visualizer: 365 Design   Make scenery a key part of your interior. The wide open windows and sheer chiffon curtaining of this monochrome space open up a wall of hanging creepers and manicured hedges. Metallics in circular pendants and a sofa add flair, while a tiled floor in marble lines it with luxury.

Architect: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates   Stick to your building blocks. Based on a concrete floor, the only feature of this minimalist living room is a TV in black.

Visualizer: PIX 3D STUDIO   Black and white photographs can make the minimalist human. Set on a stark white wall and painted floor, three captured faces gesture amidst a ruffled rug, reclined seating and unique coffee tables.

Architect: VAVO Studio   Try something more Scandinavian. A light wooden floor, muted seating and tables afford visual space for hipster monochrome prints and some jazzy lime cushions.

Architect: Ford Design   Looking for more character? This funky lounge is a great example of pop art minimalism. Surrounded by white walls and simple wooden floors, a retro cartoon, 50’s swing back and bright turquoise couch provide visual stimuli.

Visualizer: Alexander Korobka   Think along finer lines. A myriad of small white cubby holes meet a stencil chandelier and thin-framed artworks, creating patterns that coalesce, not clash. A white fluffy rug and luscious-leaved tree provide a bit more substance.

Visualizer: Aleksandra Alekseenko   Designing for men? Think more texturing, less colour. Covering a TV feature wall, floor and industrial ceiling, this room’s plywood and concrete provide a minimalist base for furniture in black and grey.

Visualizer: AtViz   Black and white rooms can look ever so trendy. Striping a rug and cushions in striking monochrome lines, this lounge seamlessly merges Scandinavian-style chairs with abstract prints and silver spider chandeliers.

Visualizer: Concretica   Ever heard of Soviet minimalism? This apartment owns the look, with a stark feature wall and illustrative painted round. A warm brown chair and bottle of wine offer cordial invitation.

Visualizer: Int2 Architecture   Love the look of large blocks? Place them in your living room amidst large wooden panes, like in this minimalist space where lines of camera lights run free. Silver satin furniture adds contrast.

Visualizer: Xu Zhichao   Create your own safe haven. Lined with plaster and brick in white, a booth seat and flooring in timber, this minimalist retreat offers a cozy place to turn the pages. An adventurous ladder and one-plank wall shelves create decoration.

Architect: M3 Architecture   Minimalism can create the ever-so-classy. Against a backdrop of white and wood, interior curtains and block seating are warmed beside an inset fire.

Visualizer: Alexey Zelentsov   Make your ceiling your feature. The sloped rafters of this white space look down upon a low Chinese lantern, wide open window and block sofas in grey. A couple of window squares keep viewers’ interest.

Visualizer: Mateusz Kociolek   Dusty pink still has credence in minimalism. Turreted staircases play with speckled stone flooring and large Japanese windows in this modern apartment, drawn in the corner by a blushing set of sofas.

Visualizer: Lugerin Igor   Prefer a dose of green? Pea green steals the limelight in this room, a minimalist concoction of grey inset shelving, wooden panelling and creeping hover lights. A spot of pink provides a table.

Visualizer: Svoya Studio    A minimalist lounge can still harbour accessories. A white and wood canvas provides space for potted greenery, marbled artwork and differently-coloured cushions and mats.

Visualizer: Pavel Pisanko   Make it pretty in pastel. The pinks, blues and greens of this lounge create a dreamy aura against a backing in chiffon. A thin line of unique wine storage shelves keep a few tipples for later.

Visualizer: Jonas Lindström   Want it more structured? Have less chairs and tables, and make the background pure white. In this minimalist design, a Fiddle Leaf Fig and bevy of white pendants complete the picture.

Visualizer: Ksenia Mokhova   Love mirrors? This minimalist Scandinavian bedroom makes them a feature on its wall. Add in French windows, cubby seats and an audience of indoor house plants, and you have a magazine-ready interior that’s super easy to maintain.

Visualizer: Emil Dervish   Let darker furniture take the stage. Upon a setting of pure white, an L-shaped sofa, black and wooden stools and splayed fan seat sit under a sky of black lights.

Visualizer: Romet Mets   Make it a little warmer. Tan colours a wooden window frame, rug and dining table, making a monochrome interior a space for all the family.

Visualizer: Architektura Design   A lightly-patterned wallpaper can add subtle flavour. This light grey wall interests beside a striking black TV panel and several shades of fabric.

Visualizer: Maxim Nizovkin   Minimalist interiors can work by height. This lounge keeps its furniture low, with its charcoal block seating, wooden partition, plush ottomans and flat-screen TV. A forest view does the talking.

Architect: Lijo Reny   Like the look of this minimalist tropical living room? Recreate it for yourself, by using warm wooden furniture, a range of wide windows and a planted jungle outside. A bright orange cushion and indoor pots bring cohesion.

Visualizer: Seclusion Earth   The right lighting can make the minimalist brilliant. Indoor lights project patterns on an interior cube, while outside windows shine through thin wooden partitions. Common beige and eggshell hues ensure the space isn’t busy.

Designer: Fertility Design   Capture the elegance of Asia. This minimalist modern Asian living room uses pops of red to draw eyes to relaxed block seating, clever black shelving and a hearth of LEDs. A similarly-lined ceiling injects beauty in architecture.

40 Serenely Minimalist Bedrooms To Help You Embrace Simple Comforts

Related Posts:

2 Simple, Modern Homes with Simple, Modern Furnishings

Futuristic Minimalist Furniture

Two Modern, Minimalist Homes That Indulge in Lots of White

Six Scandinavian Interiors That Make The Lived-in Look Inspirational

How To Use Neutral Colors In Interior Design: 2 Examples That Show The Easy, Minimalist Way

40 Beautiful Black & White Bedroom Designs