cuba libre

For me, the notion of visiting Cuba is akin to sneaking into Boo Radley’s home – forbidden, possibly dangerous and alluringly exotic. Therefore, I jumped at the chance when a friend of mine told me he was putting together a group of architects and designers to visit our long-snubbed neighbor. Though only 90 miles away from the US, it’s like visiting another faraway planet. Some preconceptions I had of Havana were true, most were not. Yes, the ancient American automobiles still hulk along the city streets looking like props from a zombie production of Grease. What I was not expecting was the distinct European loveliness that permeates the city. As far as Latin American cities go, it is much more Buenos Aires than Mexico City. Apply to that the decay and neglect from poverty and harsh tropical climate and the result is a bewitching faded gem; a tattered sequined gown still worn with dignity and glory. And the people – wonderful spirits living daily, ever hopeful, loving and ever prideful of their homeland. We could not have felt more welcomed into their realm. This is but a brief album of our journey. We returned from our fantastic waking dream with full eyes and replete hearts.

Various scenes from around the city (I often felt just like the peeking tourist in the last photo).

Grand plaza scenes ever witnessed by humble tenement dwellings.

A vist to the massive stone fort Castillo de la Real Fuerza that sternly protected Havana from foreign invaders (Bobby McAlpine, however, was granted full entry).

The ornate Art Deco splendor of the Bacardi building. The palace that rum built.

Richard Neutra’s design for a Swiss-born family’s vacation home. It serves now as the Swiss ambassador’s official house.

We visited a privately-owned restaurant set amidst the ruin of a dilapidated ancestral home. With its crumbling plasterwork, spiderwebs of exposed wiring and complete absence of window glass, this place took our breath away. Bobby said this kind of beauty could never exist in the US. If a city inspector set foot on the property and enforced one code violation or a health restriction, the magic would be forever ruined.

The buildings of Havana University. We fell in love with the classical courtyard lovingly holding an enormous Banyan tree.

The vaults at the enormous cemetery Colon represented all sorts of architectural styles.

Greg Tankersley and his wife Mary Robin Jurkiewicz

Alejandro Alonso, an architect and scholar of Art Deco in Havana, gave us a guided tour of some of the splendid examples of this ornate style. Alejandro is the author of Havana Deco.

A whimsical Tim Burton-esque home rendered entirely in mosaics. The artistry of a Cuban imagination run wild.

Eduardo Luis Rodriguez, the premier specialist of the Modern style and the author of The Havana Guide: Modern Architecture, led us on a tour of the Instituto Superior de Arte, where Cuba’s leading artists are educated. A portion of this school (Dance and Theatre) was abandoned mid-construction in the 1960s and now sits a bucolic Modern ruin.

The ragged mutts that freely roam the city of Havana are tagged by a small piece of paper that proclaims protection by the Historical Commission. Socialism at its best.

be my guest

Last week I spoke about the romance and charm that is the unencumbered outbuilding. To continue this thread of thought, I thought I’d concentrate on a specific type of accessory structure: the guest house. To have a guest cottage on the property is true luxury indeed. It’s like having your own little motor court lodge. Toss the keys to your guest and point to the path. These miniature houses sit picturesque in the landscape. They beckon and welcome, offering grand hospitality but under their own humble roofs.

shed a little light

Potting sheds. Carriage houses. Pigeonniers. Thunder Houses. These little architectural gems exude such charm, hold such romance and whisper greatly. I think its because they need so little program; their uncomplicated jobs are simple and intelligible. Standing as the quiet witnesses of the property, they offer shelter to the humble. A refuge to yard tools, a roof to the automobile, harborage to birds or an umbrella in the storm, these outbuildings hold safe the accessory members of the estate. I think that’s why they’re so fun to design. They come to us, free of burden, bearing no great requirements. No complicated programs. No code issues. No kitchen triangles. Like a child, they ask only for simple things. Walls. A roof. Sanctuary. A bit of window might be nice. Simply they sit but nobly they stand, the curios of the premises.

The winner of last week’s giveaway is Sherri Robinson. Congratulations! Your autographed copy of The Home Within Us is on its way. Thanks to all who stopped by to enter.

anniversary giveaway

This month our little blog, “Finding Home”, celebrates it’s first anniversary. During the past year, over 40,000 pairs of eyes from 150 countries have scanned over our ramblings and images. Thanks for being interested in our thoughts on design, architecture, interiors and life in general. At least we’ve spared you recipes (although we have some good ones if you like).

To applaud our fans and followers, we’ve decided to have our second giveaway. Our book, The Home Within Us, is now in its fourth printing by those wonderful folks at Rizzoli. We would like to offer a copy signed, not only by the author, Bobby McAlpine, but by the entire office! While many of Bobby’s signed copies exist (he did, after all, spend a year on the road on a nationwide book tour), not one copy exists bearing the marks of the entire creative McAlpine Tankersley clan.

Leave a comment and we’ll see who goes home with this book chock full of good design ju-ju.

All photos by Kris Kendrick
All Content on this Site is the Property of McAlpine Tankersley Architecture. Copyright © 2013 McAlpine Tankersley Architecture, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

faucets, fashion & fanfare

What do fashion and plumbing possibly have in common? One conjures beauty, curves and cleavage while the other brings forth images of cleavage in a somewhat lower area. I asked myself this question when I was graciously invited by a plumbing fitting company to join them at their annual New York gathering. Every year during the outlandish hubbub that is Fashion Week, Brizo (a boutique branch of the Delta faucet company) invites a select small number of designers to a two-day show and tell/focus group culminating in coveted seating at the Jason Wu Spring runway show. For those unfamiliar with the fashion world, Jason Wu is a white-hot, young Asian-American designer best known for clothing Michelle Obama not once, but twice, for her husband’s inaugural ball.

Many plumbing companies have sought to jump on the designer label bandwagon by commissioning interior designers and architects to create lines within their watery offerings. Brizo has done something quite unique by delving into the fashion world and partnering themselves with a costumier. As one would expect, the results are flamboyant and dramatic. The initial Jason Wu line for Brizo is classic, yet courant with it’s contemporary, Victorian-inspired edge. I anticipate the future holds interesting things for this fresh paring.

The runway show was an experience I won’t soon forget. It was the most high-drama social event/rock concert/freak show I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. This amazing circus was staged, ironically, in a classical auditorium on ever-staid Park Avenue. Inside, an enormous Phantom of the Opera scaled chandelier dangled a mere few feet above the mirrored runway floor (which was being constantly polished by a diligent army of Windex-ers). The pre-show was a thing unto itself: A mound of fashion photographers were piled at one end of the room while the other end held court to barely-famous youngsters being swarmed by a mob of recoding-device-wielding attendants. Accompanied by blaring synthesized music, the whole spectacle took on an ancient, tribal rite feel. After a bit, the crowd settled down (quieted by an amplified voice with an appropriate fake-sounding French accent) and the main act began. The beautiful and expertly clad wan models swirled and paraded around while being examined by the sunglass-shrouded Anna Wintour (obviously the severe judging Queen of this tribe). The event was dizzying and intoxicating and lasted all of twelve and a half minutes. Immediately, the temple was emptied as the gorgeous congregants vanished like vapor into the snowy city. It was like a bizarre tornadic dream that whisked me up for a moment and then disappeared as quickly as it came.

Thank you, Brizo for this experience. I arrived unsure of the relationship between haute couture and water piping, but I certainly left elevated by your new marriage.

dodgie: goodbye grande dame

We lost a dear friend this past week and our world grew a bit dimmer. Dodgie Shaffer liked architecture, but she really loved architects. She married one, gave birth to another–who in turn married one. And, she was friends with, a confidant of, and mentor to countless others. But even a field as varied and far-flung as architecture is, it proved too small for her. Anything – and especially anyone – remotely connected with design and creativity became an object of her love and a planet in the rich orbit of her life.

The house her husband, John, designed and continually tinkered with for close to 50 years was the building she loved most. For her, it was, and continued to be after his death, “John’s house”. But, it was always Dodgie’s court, where a continuous “salon on life” took place. Cleverly sited on an interior lot, where its modest size was easily expanded by a series of garden rooms, porches, and John’s office, the house was equally suited for the fantastically large parties, intimate conversations, and the parade that was their daily existence. It was a home for many of us; a place where we could just drop by, and be received as if we had long been expected; where visitors great and small were a constant fixture. How John got any work done at all remains a mystery today.

The Episcopal Church of the Ascension (designed by Ralph Adams Cram) where she held “forth and fifth” on all things floral and liturgical, was a close second. This early 20th century ‘English Country Church’, has a majestic bell tower rising above a simple, single nave and a meandering array of offices, classrooms and parish hall. It was Dodgie’s other home: situated and functioning much like “John’s house”; filled with a wide variety of loving friends and interesting people, and she loved it just as much. If only the walls of the flower arranging room could talk! On Saturday, February 2nd we offered Dodgie a mass goodbye hug from this church which (like her other house) was a grand setting to celebrate a life gracefully lived.

Our vast collective memories hold no sadness, only laughter. Thanks and goodnight old friend.

Photo by Kris Kendrick

close quarters

In this vast world, we have always sought to wrest control over our little parts of it. Take our personal natural surroundings, for instance. Man (as designer and self-designated caretaker) throughout history has attempted to lion-tame Mother Nature. As a matter of fact, I’m sure even Adam grew frustrated trying to weed the Garden of Eden.

When we are able to shrink the landscape down to an understandable size, we humble gardeners (with limited time and energies) can suddenly face the daunting tasks of sculpting nature. As an architectural feature, the courtyard creates such spaces. Sort of like an outdoor terrarium, surrounding walls tenderly hold and tame the environment. Vacuumed carpets of lawns are bordered. Specimen plants are arranged like treasured furnishings. The overwhelming world then becomes contained and miniaturized into a realm of manageable control. Canvases usually reserved for the artistic hand of God suddenly become available to the creativity of the mere mortals.

Box up your verdant dreams, pilot your wheelbarrow and head to the caressing confines of a courtyard.

lounge act

One of the current trends in residential design is the open floor plan. Basically, this is a layout in which all the public spaces in a house open up and flow seamlessly one into another. This arrangement certainly works well with modern family life. It encourages social interaction and eliminates stuffy formal rooms (remember the rooms you were never allowed in as a child, but were forced into service on holidays and you couldn’t wait to escape?). Those dusty, imposing caverns are a thing of a past in the world of the open floor plan. But for the retreating personality, the introvert or the lone reader, feeling comfortable in a vast sea of furniture and tables can be challenging. In the laundry list most people come up with in their program, a small room is often overlooked. We think it’s of utmost importance; sanity demands it. This is why we always try to add a small oasis into the programatic mix when we’re designing a house. The lounge (or “den” as it was once called) serves as a tiny retreat. An architectural hug, good lounges should be warm, enveloping and comforting. It’s waiting arms are where you go to escape the pressures of the modern open floor plan.

cohort folios

Cold weather and the fireside beckon a good read. Being visual folk, we’re always drawn to those laden with photographs – tomes bearing the unfortunate label of “coffee table books.” Why is this, anyway? Are they expected to be large expensive coasters?

We have some dear friends and colleagues who have a new book coming out this spring called The Welcoming House. As I pondered Cindy and Jane’s work, I thought of other talented individuals with whom we’ve been fortunate to collaborate. So here’s a shameless plug for our friends.

If you’ve space in your library (or spare real estate atop that overburdened coffee table), may we recommend these three? (click on the book title to order):

The Welcoming House by Jane Schwab and Cindy Smith, Rizzoli Books

The book I alluded to above is the long awaited folio from the lovely ladies behind Circa Interiors (Charlotte, NC and Birmingham, AL). Over the years, we’ve had grand opportunities to work with both designers, including their own homes. It’s fated to be a Southern-charmed best seller. Speaking of collaborators, “The Welcoming House” was designed by Doug Turshen, the talented book designer who also did our book The Home Within Us. We welcome getting our hands on this beauty.

Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors Things We Made, Rizzoli Books

A few years ago we were hooked up with Robin Standerfer and Stephen Alesch, the creative alchemists behind the design firm Roman and Williams, to collaborate on a Manhattan penthouse. This pairing, orchestrated by the client, was an interesting blind date worthy of E-Harmony. Our sensibilities meshed beautifully and resulted in hours of fascinating pencil lead-fueled work sessions. This ominously colored black volume (I jokingly told Stephen it looked like a spell book) is one of the most beautiful design folios in recent memory. It’s filled not only with amazing photography, but with multiple examples of Stephen’s artful sketches. The combination of Robin’s heart and Stephen’s hand is sheer magic.

Houses With Charm, Susan Sully, Rizzoli Books

This collaborator is not a designer, but a wordsmith. Susan Sully, the successful author of many Southern-themed books, was introduced to us a few years ago by our publisher at Rizzoli. She became a natural choice to co-author our book, The Home Within Us. She and her husband, artist Thomas Sully, quickly became dear friends. Available in March, her new book focuses on the utter, simple beauty found in Southern houses. Our business manager Richard Norris’ Montgomery home is included in the eccentric mix. Susan is currently working on our next book and her welcome sweet presence frequently graces our Lake Martin, Alabama homes.

vanity fare

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.
Diana Vreeland

As an architect, there are certain key elements found in the typical modern house that are so much fun to design. The entrance door. The kitchen island. Fire fronts. None offers more opportunity for sheer theatricality as the master bath vanity. These altars of self-exaltation beg for over-the-top design flourishes. A good vanity should elevate; it should make the user feel even more beautiful and glamorous (or handsome and dashing) in that moment of approach. In this regard, they are architectural versions of botox. Egos are petted, compliments are whispered and flirtations bandied.

Did I mention that you look great today?

finding home