The reason for that exhausting experience was due to a simple miscalculation, where arriving at the customs in New Dehli to shop for my store Joelle , I was  refused entrance and advised to go to Nepal for a supposedly 24 hours trip to get a new visa. The 24 hours deadline never happened!

On the night I arrived in Katmandu, the news were all about a plane  that was hijacked in Afghanistan and for security reasons no visas in general were issued until further notice.  Rather than  flying back to London and then Sao Paulo, I decided to stay and to explore the local textiles and unpaired crafts which I new were knowouts.

After a week the collection was set in place, furred pillows, China silked bed covers, coral and turquoise damask placemats , you name it but really  there was nothing else to do. At that time I was traveling with my assistant Marcelo , his first time in Asia where he’d need to follow-up with logistics and to put  physically in place the largest collection the Sao Paulo 1000 sq mt  flagship  would ever offer.

Very quiet and observant, Marcelo rarely spoke. Nourishing himself with Coke and chocolate, he was always able to perceive among hundred  suppliers which was reliable Ali Baba or the thieves. In numerous occasions, later in our professional lives , while  enthusiastically selecting  merchandise , I would hear Marcelo say in the middle of exhaustive negotiations   ”   Chefinha ( Little Boss ), are you working for us or for them? Go for a walk until I am done with this deal ”

The Anapurna escalation was purely my own idea. Bored, and determined to enter India soon,  I needed to explore something new . As a result of the most  physically exhausting and spiritually  overwhelming  life changing experience  I  finally got my visa to fall dead sick in a Delhi Hospital a few days later on Christmas day and Marcelo’s birthday.

Convulsive  fever, stomach and intestine discharge for days ,Marcelo saved me from convolutions choosing not to leave my sight until I got better. His name from that day until today changed from Marcelo to Anjinho ( Little Angel )

After my recovery , for the 10 years, we traveled  all over creating the very popular  Santa Fe Collection among the hundreds of  monthly  designed and developed products from  all over the world. Many years of experience in design, product development, visual merchandizing and import-export logistics little angel became almost my boss.  It was time to follow his own road of expression and a fly with his now very strong wings.

A dozen of tattoos later  and a few entrepreneurial experiences as a  Brazilian beach style Sushi Bars restaurateur , Little Angel  finally opens his mostly mature and compact business called Tam Tum where he designs, produces and distributes locally and internationally in his store and soon on line,  eclectic and colorful home accessories  .

Fresh Pillows, puffs  and futons, fabric lanterns coconut fiber table sets, bamboo furniture and ceramics carry his signature and are synonymous of his great talent and true South American sensibility created for TamTum and on special orders.

The geometric patterns of the  collections are called by the name and places we visited, and the vivid and translucent colors remind me of the unforgettable imagery that crossed our creative minds and spirits.

On his arm I notice the last tatoo…. A large Thank You that he proudly exhibits for the picture although he is very shy.

” On the occasion of your birthday little Angel , the one who thanks you once more , it’ s me!

Merry Christmas

Little Boss “ 

Joelle’s Tips:

The Company:

Tam Tum

The catalogue:
Photo Credits:  Stupla

I met Joao almost 15 years ago on the occasion of a city Interior Designers showcase, Casa Cor similar to the Amrican Kips Bay’s Show House.  At the time, I used to own a small shop of interior finishes with two partners Beto Galvez and Norea Clemente who suggested we’d participated with a room at the prestigious event. Our small space , maybe a few square meters happened to be just neighbor of Jouao’s.

Our decoration took  inspiration from 19th century English Gazebos and did not require many objects, just yellow stucco and Trompe l’Oeil finishes with a beautiful Chinese Pagoda chandelier borrowed from an antique store close to our shop.

On the contrary, Jouao space ,I remember well, had an average of 15 Italian busts mostly Roman emperors in Rosso Verona and  fiori di Pesco  Marbles, placed in perfectly symmetrical order in a squared grey walled enhance hall.  Striped silk thick draperies impeccably organized in proportional window niches , made a majestic impact enhancing, ormolu  1800 French furniture ,  modernist paintings and contemporary sculptures.

We worked for our small space, most of the day, lifting , gluing, displaying and painting the walls ourselves. Joao , at the contrary would pass 15 minutes, look around  almost mimicking  the posture of his   Italian busts , and with a discrete approval  leave quietly the same way he arrived. The only problem,  is that he would not say hi nor bye to us.

Because I have the good habit of generally not taking things personally from people, I assumed and shared with my partners,  who were not as well know as Joao, that he believed us to be our own staff. Years after this strange episode, we laughed incessantly for knowing each other much better and realizing that Joao not only is an adorable human being, with an unequalled talent, but he is also extremely shy.

For more than a decade, Joao Mansur was in the media with a circuit of  stunning residence decors from Sao Paulo Brasil a la Andrew Martin,  Buenos Aires, Argentina’s old money,  New York ‘s elite at the Plaza landmark in partnership with Interior designer Michele Safra, and creme de la creme royal’s homes in Lisbon, Portugal.

I have enjoyed taking some shots, certainly not professional photography, he has plenty of that, just to give you a sense of how comfortable I am when I am hosted  in this,  as Joao calls it ”  Guest’s Studio”.  As you will be able to notice, the place certainly feels more as a small and majestic art museum than  a simple Sao Paulo Pied -a -terre.

Surrounded by Zebra Carpets,  English Coromandels, smartly lacquered  18th century columns in red, Andy Warhols, and piles, piles plies of wonderful art books on black and very daringly chic blackened walled high ceilings I am in heaven and Joao has no idea I am about  to post this on my magazine. It’s a surprise.  Ready for a welcoming cocktails guys?

Joelle’s picks

Joao Mansur  Arquitetura

BR: Rua Groenlandia 1922bb Jardim America 01434-100 Sao Paulo / Tel +55 11 30 83 1500 / joaomansur@joaomansur.com

US:  Michele Safra Interiors : Michele Safra 655 Park Avenue 10065 New York NY + 1 212  439 1818

Alemagou is a bar and restaurant on the sands of Ftelia Beach, in Mykonos.The concept is holistic, with every element of the project telling a common story and coming together to create an inspirational yet laid-back atmosphere, perfectly suited to the site.

The menu revisits traditional, well-loved Greek recipes to produce simple but intriguing new dishes. The cocktails and the music selection also offer new combinations of favourite ingredients.

The architectural design is an extension of the same approach, creating an exciting reinterpretation of tried and tested, traditional building techniques. Taking inspiration from typical Cycladic architectural elements such as whitewashed, smooth-edged houses; drystone walls that blend into the scrubby landscape; practical, hardwearing screed floors; and natural reed-thatched roof insulation, the familiar textures are applied to contemporary, organic forms to create a unique character.

In circular room containing an enormous red dome , perhaps the most dramatic space in the Kanaal “At the edge of the world” a permanent installation by Anish Kapoor. It is a space for contemplation and peace of mind. This extraordinary installation  is tucked away in a purpose-built outhouse at a warehouse complex owned by Belgian ‘s most successful antiques dealer,  Axel Vervoordt. is this old circular brew house.

The influential tastemaker’s latest project is Axel Vervoordt Kanaal a circa-1860 former granary and brewery that sells the castle’s over- flow — Italian Renaissance bronzes, 18th-century English furniture, modern paintings — and doubles as a performance space for artists and musicians.

The ever-expanding activities, the increasing inventory, with more than 13.000 items in stock, and a lack of space at the castle for showing many over-sized objects, led Axel Vervoordt to look for an additional site. The old malting complex at Wijnegem was the ideal place to realize his ideas.

There he could use his expertise to recycle the past and re-evaluate the architectural significance of an old industrial site, while creating a stepping-stone to the 21st century. Kanaal houses showrooms, exhibition spaces, a museum and facilities for a range of other artistic activities.

Vervoordt’s story is as remarkable as his collection. He has been rapaciously amassing art and artifacts since his schooldays, when, visiting England with his father during the holidays, he would hunt for collectibles and bring them back to the city of Antwerp.

Mere mortals, meanwhile, can get a glimpse of Vervoordt’s collection year-round. It’s an artfully designed, theatrical space – more gallery than showroom – where you can walk away with a vintage vase-cum-lamp for us $ 400. Amid the warren of corridors and halls, you’ll spy a 13th-century Chinese statue of a priest meditating, a ritual axe from Ecuador or an abstract painting by one of Belgium’s best 20th-century artists. Covered sofas and coffee tables, many designed by May, are everywhere.

As a connection between the warehouse and the workshop, there is an impressive corridor featuring bare brick walls and concrete floors. It used to contain all kind of machinery and continues straight to the waterline of the canal. Hidden in the heart of Kanaal two large storage rooms contain over a 1000 pieces ranging from mantelpieces to wooden paneling, an inexhaustible source of treasures awaiting their rightful destination. A was newly built in order to join the office building to the monumental “Karnak“.

Column Hall or Karnak ( Office Building )

This vast hall of columns was named after the Karnak temple because of it’s remarkable resemblance and spiritual atmosphere. It houses a permanent exposition of the private collection, such as Thai sculptures and Buddha-torsos.  In the midst a forest of pillars in the building’s cement grain dryer  he installed his collection of Mon Dvaravati statues made between the 6th and 8th centuries by Indian monks who brought Zen Buddhism to Thailand. “It’s a challenging new context in which to reconsider these spare exercises in form from an earlier age and a different culture,” he notes

Corridor

When entering the ‘Kanaal’ this corridor immediately sets the industrial atmosphere of bare walls and high ceilings. The reception, logistics department, conference room , Boris’ office and Karnak are directly accessible via the corridor.

Boris Verdvo0rdt Office

With its old brick walls, barrelled ceilings, concrete floor and arched windows; the office has an authentic industrial feel. Situated on the axis between the end of the entrance alley and the high silos towering over the Kanaal complex.

Main Building – Gound Floor Central

The few pieces presented here are highlighted by a rather dramatic lighting. The white walls and high ceilings create the perfect environment for exhibiting antique garden statuary, massive stone tables, or even a collection of French stone masterproofs…

Main Building and Photostudio

Apart from antique furniture and objects, they also have a wide selection of antique building materials, such as mantelpieces, wooden paneling, parquets etc. This room is often used to display antique panelings.

Newly purchased items are immediately sent to the photo studio. Each of the 250 pieces that arrive here monthly have at least 3 pictures taken from different angles, they are also weighed, measured and labeled.

Main Building- 1st Floor Central

The first floor central is a perfect example for our eclectic style, mixing very different pieces in perfect harmony. The extreme simplicity of the rough concrete floor and dark grey walls create a spacious “loft” environment.

Light is everywhere and the architect home collection of daybeds, slipcovers, chairs and upholstered sofas all in white is superb and very comfortable.

Main Building kitchen

Tripped bare brick walls, old and withered, some of the paint remains might even date from the construction of the building in 1860.

The furniture exhibited in the kitchen is mostly rather simple and quite rustic.

Main Building Brown Room

After passing the meditation room, containing mostly English mahogany furniture, we continuously try to recreate the atmosphere of a gentleman’s office in this exhibition room.

Main building Casebere

Together with the grey room,  and near the kitchen, this room is named after the New-York based photographer James Casebere, this room features one of the artist’s works entitled “Two Tunnels”.This sober room presents mainly architectural Italian walnut furniture.

Loft (Main building Second Floor)

With its original arched windows, concrete floors and iron columns, the room presents pieces from our home collection, which have been designed by Axel Vervoordt himself.

Studio (Main Building Second Floor )

The impressive iron roof construction is the first thing that meets the eye when you enter this enormous space. The original arched windows offer the most beautiful view on the Albert Canal.

Central (Main Building – Second Floor)

Set between the red room and the studio, this L-shaped room is usually used to present charming “mountain” furniture.

Main Building – Third Floor- Upholstery Studio

Our upholstering studio, offers a wide range of natural fabrics used for the upholstering of antique chairs or sofas as well as for models from our Home collection.

Main Building -Third Floor- Modern Selection –

Situated on the top floor, this spacious, sun-drenched room overlooks the canal.
Here, surrounded by our most beautiful creations in home furnishings, our people give life to the home-collection every day. Many of which, brightly colored and Deco-styled, seem to come out from a Magritte painting.

The story begins with Vervoordt’s family history, and how he started buying and selling antiques when he was a student. As a young adult, he bought and restored a 16th-century house in the center of Antwerp. When numerous admiring clients asked him to do the same, he fell into decorating. Now, with a staff of 100, he personally supervises between 12 and 20 interior design commissions a year for a variety of royalty, pop stars, museums, bankers, collectors and musicians.

Though the Vervoordt castle and Kanaal are two entirely different buildings, some of the spaces and the way they are arranged with furniture, art or objects look very similar at the hands of Vervoordt. When Vervoordt decided to buy the Kanaal, a complex of warehouses, grain silos and a large round building, he wanted a truly minimalist environment where he could exercise his vision of “limitless spatial purity.” By stripping the buildings down to the bare wooden board or cement floors and exposed brick or whitewashed-cement block walls, Vervoordt hopes to show “how we might wish to live in the 21st century.”

Not only is the variety of the antiques and art that he offers awe-inspiring but so too is his philosophy. “I consider myself a very eclectic collector and dealer. I treasure the timeless and disdain the trendy,” states Vervoordt. “My taste spans centuries, continents and economic strata. I love the tension between different object and different cultures.” Two elaborate silver candelabra “taken away from some princely 18th-century dining table become not table decoration, not emblems of wealth and power, but strange and beautiful abstract objects,” he  writes in one of his  publications.

It embodies Vervoordt’s raison d’etre: “My task .. has been to rediscover works of art, to save them for the future, to reveal them for what they are, to show them at their best, to give them a better place in the world—and, perhaps, by doing this, to create harmony and find new ways of expressing the inner life.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The antique dealer ans architect: Axel Vervoordt

The Complex:  Kanaal, Stokerijstraat 19, Wijnegem / Tel  00 32 3 355 3300, Thursday, Friday 2-6pm, Saturday 11am-6pm.

Sources: Antwerp: Great away days  By Julia Davis / the Indipendent

Photo credit of Antwerp house:  Hotel Belgium Photoguide Used with the permission of www.hotels-belgium , www.trabel.com & www.arakea.com’. Alle rights reserved

After having developed major sales in this domain and created a reputation as the leading auction room in Belgium,  Pierre Bergé & associés is focusing its new gallery on the world of contemporary design and 1910 to 1970  American vintage .  The exhibitions usually explore the work of an artist or shed light on a specific theme.

With a surface area measuring 200 m2, white walls and a mottled grey floor, the gallery welcomes several  of the most popular designers once a year. Parallel to its design gallery and auctions, Pierre Bergé & associés  initiated a design prize ,the Skieven. The prize was awarded for the first time in the second half of 2008 to first-year students from design schools  encouraged to present pieces that have never been shown in the market.

During my stay in Brussels, and luckily for me, the gallery is showcasing an exhibition on American and Brazilian design . Vintage Brazilian furniture of the 1960s is definitely part of the major references in today’s design this is the reason why I am sure, the auction after the show, will ravish Belgian design collectors and amateurs from all over the country.

As per advice of the very kind Marie Le Tallec the company’s associate attache press from Paris , I decide to go and check the several pieces of the  furniture that became so familiar to me during the 25 years I lived in Brazil. At Rio de Janeiro doctor’s offices, Sao Paulo cozy apartments  , beach properties in Ubatuba and fancy boutique hotels in Curitiba now in the heart of the Sablon in Brussels. The furniture of great quality is from major Brazilian designers such the legendary Sergio Rogrigues, Jorge Zalszupin , from the States Milo Baughman and Carlo Hauner among others.

Several intersting factors can be easily noticed ; the love and respect for the wood, as well a s the comfort and simplicity of shapes as to pay respect with pride to the environment and the expression of a national identity. The key words of these very special people is to defend strongly their national treasure,  Amazonas.

Therefore Imbuia, Palissander or Jacaranda often coming from recycling wood, have contributed to authentic creations made with an exceptional execution which has allowed Brazilian furniture to be internationally known, reaching the top.

Having said that, we though it would be interesting to link Brazilian vintage to the talented work of the studio Makkink and Bey. Recognised internationally for his creation guided by recycling, science and poetry, the studio works in a world where techniques and sciences meet the poetry of the object.

Olivia Roussev who is in charge of the Galerie tells me that Pierre Berge & Associes exhibitions are accompanied by a mono-graphic catalog, at the price shown on the label, which is sent to collectors before the inauguration of the event. A website also was created with the possibility of making online purchases.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Gallery: Pierre Berger & Associe – Grand Sablon 40 Grote Zavel,Bruxelles, B1000 Brussels + 32 (02)49 49 90 00

And what is most incredible is that the storefront of his is floral emporium feels like a breath of fresh — and beautifully perfumed — air.

Once called “La Chemiserie Niguet”  the shop was designed by the master architect Paul Hankar at the beginning of this century, is without any doubt one of the most out- standing  jewels of Art Nouveau in the city with an elegant , austere and exotic paradoxical  touch of Japonisme.

This man, also a master of a kind, is called Daniel Ost and is considered by many as the world’s foremost floral designer and sculptor. Daniel has the unique ability to envision life through flowers and creates absolute beauty through his passion and art. He has fashioned his own world of astonishing floral designs, which have earned him a devoted international clientele.

Recently the art and fashion worlds have also become acquainted with the 53-year-old floral designer: he created the arrangements for the opening of the Palazzo Grassi museum in Venice two years ago and erected a wall of pink dahlias, gerberas, hydrangeas and lisianthuses as the backdrop to Dries Van Noten’s spring 2007 collection. A couple of seasons later, flowers of all shapes and colors bloomed in almost every major collection.

Many of Ost’s best creations are included in the books “Leafing Through Flowers” , ” Transparent“  “Invitations” . This modern-day Belgian has inverted the old masters’ logic. These arrangements seem impossible, and yet they actually did exist.

Daniel Ost is more famous in Japan than anywhere else in the world, as Ikebana, Japanese flower arranging, is a well-established art form there. “There, flowers are connected with spirituality,” he has been nicknamed  “The Bridge  “for his ability to blend Eastern and Western influences.

“In the West we use them in a purely decorative way, but in Japan they work with the flower’s soul to express not just beauty but ideas like death.” Still, he hasn’t been ignored by his countrymen.

Within five years of opening his shop in Sint-Niklaas in 1985, he was receiving orders from the Belgian Royal Family, in 2005 he opened his second shop in Brussels and it has received wide critical acclaim and has been highly successful.

The process of decay interests Ost. “I’ve always wanted to show flowers in their optimum moment, but now that I’m older, I also want to explore the beauty of dying,” he says. As if to balance this somber impulse, Ost occasionally designs lush landscapes. “I like gardens because they’re about growing rather than cutting.”

His wormlike rows of bushes, winding pathways and large branch configurations that sprout from ponds are as dramatic as his more intimate pieces, but Ost insists that they are merely a side interest. “I only do them in places I like and for people I like.”

His artistry is in demand by royalty, celebrities, and corporations and his installations, which last only a few days, are extremely costly, but the artistic value is absolutely priceless.

To experience the Floral World according to Daniel Ost is like stepping into another world highlighted by the finest colors, designs and floral smells.

Over the past 30 years Daniel Ost has cemented his reputation as being the maestro in creating simple elegance and is in demand on the lecture circuit throughout the world to share and show his floral vision.

As he recently told to Arnmand  Limnader a reporter from the new York Times section Style, and published: June 22, 2008 “I make things very hard for myself because everything I do must be professionally perfect,” says Ost.

This man who has been known to travel 900 kilometers to collect the materials for one bouquet whose creations involve an ephemeral balance of beauty, spirituality and ingenuity, should one thinking of him  as just man, an artist a genius or a sculptor ?

Joelle’s Tips:

The Floral Designer:

The Source:

Bouquets Photos Credits: Courtesy of Daniel Ost

“We have tried to design a transparent building in the sense that we are not hiding what is happening behind the surface of the structure.”

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa

The New Museum is the first major art museum to be constructed in downtown Manhattan in the city’s modern history. It is located in the Bowery, on what was an 8,000 square foot parking lot, and is New York’s only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art.

Unlike MoMA or the Whitney, the New Museum is truly contemporary and is not suffering from an identity crisis. Designed by cutting-edge, Tokyo-based architects Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA, it opened in December 2007.

The seven-story composition is a stack of rectangular boxes shifted off axis in different directions, clad in silvery galvanized, zinc-plated steel, and punctuated by skylights and windows offering vistas and vignettes of the city.

They have designed a breathtaking facility that features beautifully proportioned galleries, a theater, an education floor, a New Museum Store, a café, a top floor event space with roof terraces and more.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art occupys its own freestanding, dedicated building for the first time in the institution’s history and will be the first art museum ever built from the ground up in downtown Manhattan.

The building’s form was conceived to express the ever-changing dynamic of the art and ideas to be presented within. Dramatic full floor, column-free exhibition spaces  occupy three main gallery levels.

The broad, light-washed ground floor space — named the Marcia Tucker Hall in honor of the New Museum’s late founder — is an animated public space where visitors will find the Museum’s acclaimed store.

These features and spaces will provide a platform for the Museum’s far-reaching international programs, including exhibitions, installations, live presentations and performances, public education programs, and a highly original new global institutional partnership initiative, Museum as Hub.

At night, the building’s metallic exterior will be washed with artificial lighting from within.
Summarizing their approach to the design for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, SANAA has said:

“The solution emerged through an extensive period of trial and error. We made numerous study models based upon the New Museum’s program and the demands of the site, the zoning envelope. First we arrived at the notion of the boxes themselves; each one represents a specific piece of the program developed by the Museum.

Then we tried shifting the boxes to render the inside of the building more accommodating and open, with more possibilities for daylight to enter spaces and views to appear at various points in the interiors.

We designed the building from the inside out, based upon our understanding of the Museum’s needs.

Because of the kind of art the Museum shows and the curatorial approach they take, we wanted to design simple spaces – spaces without columns and with a lot of possibilities for different configurations, for placement of temporary dividing walls, and so forth – that would provide the widest range of options.

We do not believe that a building should overwhelm or compete with the art presented within it, particularly when it comes to contemporary art.  So we have tried to make spaces that are inviting but straightforward.”

Joelle’s Tips:

The Museum: New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 / 212.219.1222
New York, NY 10002

The Architects: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa SANAA LTD.
The Associate architects: Guggenheimer Architects, New York
The Project architect: Florian Idenburg
The Structural engineer: Guy Nordenson

The Main Photo:  photo of SANAA architect Kazuyo Sejima by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue (via Curbed). She’s holding a model of the building in her palm of her hand .

No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 in worked partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park  when the historic structure was under threat of demolition and created the public landscape with guidance from a diverse community of High Line supporters.

The High Line ,designed by an architectural team from Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is meant to offer a retreat from street life, a bucolic space floating 30 feet in the air with Hudson River views. Yet it will retain many elements of its gritty past: graffiti is prevalent on the buildings it winds through, and some of the rails have been restored in the park. That the park — which grew from an idea hatched in the 1990s into a $170 million project — exists at all is a marvel.

The project gained the City’s support in 2002. Much of the designers’ work has been devoted to seeking a balance between preserving what one called “the romance of the ruin” — wild grasses growing up through the metal skeleton of rails and rivets — and creating a fresh green corridor for pedestrians.

The High Line south of 30th Street was donated to the City by CSX Transportation Inc. in 2005. Condominiums, hotels and office buildings designed by architectural talent like Jean Nouvel, Annabelle Selldorf, Renzo Piano, and the Della Valle Bernheimer firm are sprouting along the park’s span.

André Balazs’s 18-story Standard Hotel, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, is the only new building that rises directly over the elevated park. The towering structure is supported on massive concrete pillars, while a ground-floor restaurant and garden cafe are tucked underneath the High Line’s hefty steel frame.

Construction on the park began in 2006. The first portion of the three-section High Line, which runs near the Hudson River from Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, is  open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are entrances at Gansevoort Street (stairs) and at 16th Street (elevator); exits are located every few blocks.

The second phase, which extends to 30th Street, is under construction and expected to be completed by fall 2010. The third phase, up to 34th Street, has yet to be approved.The project has already transformed the area near its 22-block stretch near the river, prompting some of the most ambitious development in the city in years. The first two sections of the High Line cost $152 million, according to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, $44 million of which was raised by Friends of the High Line, the group that led the project.

The High Line runs through three of Manhattan’s most dynamic neighborhoods: the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton. When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences.

The Meatpacking District

Much of the first section of the High Line is located in the Meatpacking District. Around 1900, the district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing

When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses. Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses. Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios, retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences. Around 1900, the meatpacking district was home to more than 250 slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants. In recent decades, as industrial uses have declined in New York City, the Meatpacking District has seen a resurgence of other uses.

Before the High Line was built, trains on street level, as well as barges and ships from the Hudson River, brought goods to the district for processing. When the High Line was built, it carried freight trains full of meat and other goods directly to the upper floors of these meatpacking plants and factories.

Its historic cobblestone streets and low-lying industrial buildings are now home to many restaurants, nightclubs, design and photography studios, and fashion boutiques.

In 2003, following a community-led effort, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission established the Gansevoort Market Historic District in recognition of the neighborhood’s historical importance.

The corner of Gansevoort Street and Washington Street, at the High Line’s southern end, is the future location of a new Whitney Museum of American Art facility. Pre-construction has begun on the site, and the facility is currently projected to open in 2012. Visit the Whitney’s Web site for more information.

West Chelsea

To the north of the Meatpacking District is the neighborhood of West Chelsea, where the majority of the High Line is located. West Chelsea shares the industrial past of the Meatpacking District, with large factories and warehouses lining its streets and avenues. West Chelsea is now home to the world’s largest concentration of art galleries.

In 2005, much of West Chelsea was rezoned by the Department of City Planning, to allow for the High Line’s reuse, to encourage the continued use of former industrial spaces as art galleries, and to encourage economic growth through residential development along Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.

Much of Chelsea was, and continues to be, residential; its tree-lined blocks of historic townhouses earned part of it designation as the Chelsea Historic District in 1970, with an extension added in 1981.

The creation of another Historic District, in West Chelsea, was recently approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. This District focuses on the industrial history of the neighborhood, and includes many historically and architecturally significant factory and warehouse buildings.

Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen

The High Line’s northernmost section runs through the southern section of the Clinton / Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Much of this neighborhood was part of the 2005 Hudson Yards Rezoning, which was meant to encourage large-scale development and the improvement of transportation infrastructure.

In the next decade or so, this neighborhood will likely undergo significant changes to its built environment.

High-lining- Fashion Statements

According Bill Cunningham on a covaerage for the New York Times the High Line fashion message is of the future.

30 feet above the ground and through the buildings you can witness the most interesting and cool downtown fashion promenade. Unlike Fifth and Park Avenue the fashion belongs to the art  and downtown crowd.

Sportswear, minimalistic dresses  short and long over the ground and not overly expensive reflecting the look of the of Meat Packing District shops are all seen at the High Line .

But as mesmerizing as the design is, it is the height of the High Line that makes it so magical, and that has such a profound effect on how you view the city.

Joelle’s Tips:

The Suspended Park: The High Line

Photo Credits: Joelle Lifestyle / The High Line Flikr Pool

Source: The New York Time : The High Line

After eye inaugurating their first three locations (Portland, Seattle, and Palm Springs) from a far, I  was psyched to learn ACE Hotel was finally opening an east coast locale in New York City. I got the chance to check out the newly opened location in Manhattan a few weeks back, click through for impressions and as always a hefty dose of pics.

Located on 20 West 29th St, the new Manhattan ACE Hotel is a sight to behold from the inside, but easy to miss on the outside.  The entrance is  dark and reminiscent of a men’s club Hemingway may have been part of, the beginning of a decidedly masculine vibed hotel.

There’s a bar, reading areas, bookshelves lined with antique books, vintage steel furniture, even a stuffed Badger.

Digging thing that springs to mind — nor is the area around 29th Street and Broadway. So the lobby of the recently opened Ace Hotel came as a pleasant surprise. The latest effort by the Northwest-based proprietors of hip yet reasonably priced lodgings (and its first on the East Coast) was designed by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of the New York firm Roman and Williams, who turned a decrepit landmark 1904 building that formerly housed the Hotel Breslin into a haven of too-cool-for-school bohemian chic.

The 18-foot-high lobby space, with its original mosaic tile floor and carved plaster ceiling, embodies what Standefer calls “the anti-boutique hotel concept.” She and Alesch were looking for that sense of familiarity common to old hotels in Europe, where you feel as if you’re sitting in someone’s living room. A comfortable clutter of found objects — “New furniture wouldn’t be familiar enough,” Standefer said — fills the space, from stuffed birds to old laboratory tables to bachelor-pad sectional seating and plaid wing chairs.

Atop an old bookcase, a tray holds a raft of mercury glass flasks; a large blackboard at the back of the room broadcasts the cocktails du jour in the bar area. There are magazines and newspapers for browsing, and the occasional appearance of one of the old hotel’s residents (it used to be an SRO, and some people refused to move) gives the room a down-to-earth, communal vibe. And the wall behind the staircase is home to an installation by the artist Michael Anderson, who copied his collection of 20 years’ worth of graffiti tags and turned them into a graphic black-and-white collage.

Roman and Williams (who did the redesign of the Royalton as well as the interiors of the Standard Hotel and its restaurant, the Standard Grill) are currently at work on two other spaces in the Ace — a restaurant called the Breslin, which will be run by the Spotted Pig’s Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield, and a branch of Portland’s Stumptown Coffee (for which the designers chose a 1960s Milanese look). When both open in the fall, this still-scruffy neighborhood won’t know what hit it.

On one of their deluxe rooms, I was floored with the attention to detail. King size bed draped with a Pendleton blanket, desk with leather blotter, pencil and Weber sharpener (old school), beautiful ACE hotel stationary, and even a record player with a half dozen vinyls to choose from.

On top of a small school desk, the survival kit guide written in old typing machine fonts, starts like this:” Welcome to the Ace Hotel New York. I keep this short so you have more time to experience the hotel and the city. You’re in a historic landmark building that originally opened in 1904 as the Hotel Bresling.

It has undergone many changes in its long life. We have tried to preserve as many features as possible, like the ornate coffered ceilings  … Be adventurous take the subway it will take you down to Soho, Union Square or Chinatown….. If something doesn’t work properly tell us we know how to fix it  We are happy you are here… Thank you for sleeping with us Cheers .. all of us of Ace Hotel New York”

Even the bathroom was finished in subway tile, and the shower had a fantastic shower head (a much overlooked detail). Did I mention the old school ice box even stocked the High Life?

With every corner and detail uncovered, I found myself nodding thinking, “that would look great in my dream loft apt.” Of course, that was the purpose behind the hotel designers who have turned this early 19th century building into hotel  you could have only designed in your imagination.

ACE Hotel NYC continues to drop the exclusives on their staff. Kinda makes you want to work there just to get access to the collaboration goods. “The staff at the Portland Ace have worn Jack Purcell shoes since its debut, and for NYC, Ace is partnering with Converse on special Chuck Taylor All Star shoes. An American icon, Converse is indelibly linked with the independent spirit and attitude of countless musicians, artists and athletes. Simple, understated, synonymous with rock & roll and coveted by all walks of life, we think Converse is a perfect fit for Ace.”

It’s hard to describe cool with words, but when you stay at the ACE Hotel in Manhattan you just know. The pics should do the rest of the talking.

Joelle’s Tips

Photo credits: Graffiti mural: Photo: Douglas Lyle Thompson / Room : courtesy of Ace Hotel / Collage and source : T magazine- ‘ Study Hall – The Ace Hotel Lobby”  by Pilar Viladas