peterm wrote:Fantastic. Nice work with the desk/radiator/stereo. It's interesting to see Wrightian principles working well with historic elements like the parquet floors crown, Victorian fireplace, and crown molding. He used the high ceilings to great advantage.
Interesting how Tafel used the radiators to advantage ... to grab Victory from the Jaws of Defeat, long a Taliesin Tradition. Mr. Wright's early houses, of course, had radiators cleverly concealed behind wooden structures, until in the mid-30's he finally submerged The Willey living room radiators below floor level, until completely enclosing them within the concrete floors of the Usonian Houses.
Perhaps John deKoven Hill's New York apartment remodel was even better than Tafel's. A couple of colour photographs in a later House Beautiful illustrated his effort to good effect.
Curious though. At the same time Tafel was hiding his radiators ... I was faced with a similar problem, after my parents moved us to a new/old house in the 50's. My bedroom had one tall, ugly radiator clumsily set between two windows. Topping it with a long, narrow board, I raised another, smaller piece of plywood in front of the radiator, just four inches off the floor. From that I leaned a larger panel against the radiator, the top edge of the panel hidden just beneath the narrow board above. The larger panel formed a perfect easel for the display of art works, photographs, and such, while the lower board periodically held a shiny brass bowl filled with fresh fruit. Though incredibly inexpensive and simple, the ensemble made the room sparkle with vigour and verve.
A similar problem faced me when I moved into the top floor apartment overlooking the lower court at Taliesin. A few pieces of Cypress boards, cut to size, perfectly concealed the room's radiator, again providing a handy easel for display. Combined with several new shelves built into the blank wall below the long line of windows, plus a folding screen set beneath a newly abbreviated deck, the whole replacing a door so heavy its hinges were torn from the wall, and the tiny room was transformed into something rather restful and pleasing.
So effective were these two efforts that I recently built a somewhat similar but far more sophisticated arrangement in my home office ... again between two windows (minus the radiators). It's all a bit like Mapplethorpe's signature altars ... a feature of all his apartments from first to last. Anyone ever seen Mapplethorpe's New York apartments? Fascinating affairs ... he apparently had a great feel for architecture.
