Joshua Levine's recent (WSJ Magazine) piece on John Pawson, -- the architect who "elevated nothingness to an art" -- is a good read.
It's mostly about the country retreat that he recently completed for himself and his wife in the English countryside, but there's also lots about his minimalist architecture, his career, his work with hotelier/developer Ian Schrager, and his passion for photography.
I like this bit about architectural simplicity. The great irony of minimalism, and the reason why brands such as Calvin Klein and Jil Sander began working with John Pawson to leverage his aesthetic, is that it's often more difficult to do less. Getting the details right costs money. Hence this great line from the New Yorker:
As the New Yorker cartoon put it, “Only the rich can afford this much nothing.” Don’t expect a rebuttal from Pawson. “It is big, and it is expensive, you know. It’s sophisticated architectural simplicity. This isn’t a religious thing, and it isn’t as simple as you can go. You can go a lot simpler than this.”
I also like what the following says about labels and what it means to be defined as something:
Slowing down for Pawson isn’t all that slow. He takes photos constantly and has always used the camera as his third eye. In 2017, Phaidon published Spectrum, a book of his photos, many of them first posted on his Instagram (“I said, ‘Well, I’m not a photographer,’ and they said, ‘You are a photographer,’ so now I’m a photographer”).
Click here for the rest of the article from WSJ Magazine. And if you aren't familiar with John Pawson, here is his minimal website.
Photo: Max Gleeson (Armonia Apartments designed by John Pawson)
Proposition C will be on San Francisco’s ballots this November 6th, 2018.
If approved by voters, the following additional taxes would be levied on businesses in order to create a dedicated fund to both support and prevent homelessness in the city:
For businesses that pay a gross receipts tax, an additional tax of 0.175 percent to 0.690 percent on those gross revenues in San Francisco over $50 million;
For businesses that pay the administrative office tax, an additional tax of 1.5 percent of their payroll expense in San Francisco.
Marc Benioff – the founder of Salesforce (which happens to be the city’s largest employer) – has emerged as the lead supporter of Prop C. Between personal and corporate funds, he has contributed almost $8 million to getting this passed.
But other billionaires in the Bay Area, such as Jack Dorsey of Twitter, have taken a different position, instead siding with Mayor London Breed, who does not support Prop C.
If you’re interested in this topic, the New Yorker has a piece called, The Battle of the Big-Tech Titans Over San Francisco’s Tax for the Homeless
A friend of mine recently shared this Twitter thread with me. It is by Chaz Hutton. I didn’t know who Chaz was before I read the thread. But I now know that he draws things, sometimes for the New Yorker.
Chaz’s Twitter thread covers the history behind what was once believed to be the smallest plot of land in New York City. He also positions the story as the “perfect embodiment of New York’s attitude.” Guess what the means.
The story is about the isosceles triangle pictured above, measuring 25-1/2″ at its base and 27-1/2″ along its sides. It is known as the Hess triangle and it reads: “Property of the Hess Estate which has never been dedicated for public purposes.“
Click here for the full story.
Image: Chaz Hutton
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