aazzarito@nypl.org's blog

Ginsberg, Hughes, Byron, and Poe They wrote poems that we all know On April 30th, Poem in Your Pocket Day Add your own words to what they say Thursday, April 30th, 2009 will be the seventh annual Poem In Your Pocket day in New York City, and this year, the Mayor's Office is working with the Poetry Society of America to bring poet John Waldman’s Envelope Project to New York City. We've offered up the NYPL blog as a space for everyone to participate, so if you want to write your own poem, simply follow these instructions:

1. Browse through these first lines of famous poems.
2. When you have found one that inspires you, continue writing your own poem based on the first line.
3. Once you have finished your poem, post it in the comments section below. Link the NYPL blog to your Facebook page, and share with your friends!
4. Be sure to check back on April 30th to see what other New Yorkers have written – as well as the original poems.
5. And don’t forget to print out a copy of your poem and tuck it in to your pockets, so you can be ready for April 30th.

Suggested first lines below the fold…

In the recent New York Times feature, Shopping With…, designer Kelly Wearstler visited the Los Angeles bookstore, Potterton Books and revealed books that have inspired her. Many of Kelly’s inspiration books are in the collection of The New York Public Library including the article's pièce de résistance “A Speciman Book of Pattern Papers.” Although Kelly paid $3200 for the book, you can look at it for free at the Library. (Just keep in mind that you’ll have to look at it on site, but bring your camera—you can take as many pictures as you want.) If you can’t make it to the Library, there are some beautiful patterns on the Digital Gallery, including my new favorite, to the right. For while rare books may be expensive, inspiration is always free.

Here are some of the other books mentioned in the article:

"The Bathroom: A New Interior"
"Goodbye Picasso"
"The Hermès Shop Windows"
"Horst: Interiors"
"The Shell: Five Hundred Million Years of Inspired Design"
"Ettore Sottsass : a critical biography"

This is a photo of the Map Division at the New York Public Library. One of the many beautiful spaces at the Library.  Not only is it a great source for map research, it is also an inspiration for any design enthusiast. Gold leaf ceiling, anyone?

And although New York Public is my daily source of inspiration, I found a wonderful online exhibition of great libraries all over the world from Curious Expeditions. One of my favorites is the Joanina Library University of Coimbra, Portugal. I’m a sucker for a library ladder.

This has to be one of my favorite mid-century modern chairs. Other than just being my favorite, it also has the distinction of being one of the early stacking chairs.

This is the Landi chair designed by Hans Coray in 1938. The design won a competition held by the Swiss Parks authority to be the official seating for the Swiss National Exhibition. Among the judges were the modernist giants, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.   The chair was so popular that it was used again at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and is still in production today (albeit with some design modifications). 

 Although the chair is in major museum collections, it’s a little difficult to find much information on it. One of the best sources is an amazing book on aluminum from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum here in New York. It’s called Aluminum by Design: From Jewelry to Jets. You can also usually find information about specific pieces of furniture in more general books. One of my favorite design historians, Penny Sparke mentions the Landi chair in her book, Furniture: Twentieth-century Design. She writes about the fact that as post-war homes became increasingly smaller, the stacking feature of the Landi chairs would become a model for many other stacking chairs.

Some Like-minded Designs

Magis

Ronde Armchair

Supernatural

It would be impossible to write about design from New York Public Library and not mention the Library building itself.  When I first came to work at the Library, I would marvel at its grandeur, the overwhelming scale of the staircases, the height of the ceilings, the copious amounts of marble. But now, after working in this building everyday for five years, it is the details that amaze me–a hidden staircase, a lion mask on a chandelier, the carved acanthus leaves crowning a wooden column.  The architects of this grand Beaux-Arts building designed everything from the overall space to the chairs, benches and even the trash cans.

And who were these detail-oriented architects? John Mervin Carrère and Thomas Hastings. These gentlemen and their firm of Carrère & Hastings are the focus of a recently published glossy book by Acanthus Press.  This book is, of course, available for browsing in the very building that the authors of Carrère & Hastings Architects call “an undeniable turning point for the firm.”