Category: august 2019

The Guest House at Field Farm

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Home away from home

A Bauhaus-inspired house designed by Edwin Goodell, Jr. in 1948 for Lawrence and Eleanor Bloedel, avid modern art and furniture collectors of the time, it still is adorned by original artwork inside and out. But the best feature of this most remarkable Bed & Breakfast, is the tranquility it exudes: the gardens with a pond, the walking trails through pastures, a forest, the unobstructed views of Mt. Greylock in the background, everything about it seems to have been designed for calmness, a state of mind that anyone living in Midtown Manhattan so desperately seeks!

The Guest House, Williamstown, MA

August 31st, 2019

Skyscrapers & Art

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United Nations Grounds

  • Created by the Russian painter and sculptor, Zurab Tsereteli, the sculpture commemorates the 1987 signing of the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate – Range and Shorter – Range Nuclear Missiles (INF Treaty), and is in celebration of the 45 Session of the General Assembly. Created as a monument to peace, the sculpture is composed of parts of actual United States and Soviet missiles. The work depicts an allegorical St. George, one arm raised, as he drives a lance through a double headed dragon.

    The dragon in the sculpture is not the mythological beast of the early Christian tradition, but the specter of nuclear war vanquished by the historic treaties between the Soviet Union and the United States. Accordingly the dragon is shown lying amid the broken pieces of Soviet SS-20 and U.S. Pershing missiles. Actual fragments of these weapons have been used in the sculpture.
  • Bronze monument consisting of a multitude of figures on a large ship (23′ long) with three masts and two gangplanks. Gift of Ireland.
  • The statue ‘Mir’ (Peace), one of the symbols of the United Nations Headquarters in New York, is the work of the renowned Croatian sculptor Antun Augustinčić (1900, Klanjec – 1979, Zagreb). The sculptor himself came to the United States in 1952 to choose and propose a UN ground site for the 16’ high bronze statue.
  • “Kusikawsay” means “peaceful and happy life” in the Quechua language. The sculpture, a gift of Colombia, is made of seven tonnes of melted ammunition surrendered by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) as part of the peace agreement with the government in 2016. Made by Chilean  artist Mario Opazo, it represents an indigenous canoe that comes out of the ground like a projectile.

United Nations Grounds, New York City

August 27th, 2019