First Modernist Studio In America Is For Sale

Michigan born architectural genius Ezra Winter built the first modernist home and studio in Connecticut in 1931. Now those landmark buildings are on the market.

From Design Observer:

Born in Michigan in 1886, Ezra Winter studied at the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts, and won the Prix de Rome in 1911. He spent the next few years in residence at the American Academy in Rome, returning to the United States after the First World War. Winter went on to receive a number of prestigious commissions, including the Cunard Building in New York, the North and South Reading Rooms at the Library of Congress, and the monumental stairway mural at Radio City Music Hall. Working with a local builder in the early 1930s, Winter designed a modernist home and studio for himself in rural Connecticut where he lived and worked until his death in 1949. Later, it became the summer studio for the Lathrop sisters — Dorothy, an illustrator, who won the first Caldecott medal in 1938, and Gertrude, a metal sculptor who studied at the New York Art Students League with Gutzon Borglum — the artist perhaps best known for creating the presidents’ heads on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

Go here to see alot more beautiful images of the property. Gorgeous.

Hamilton Type Joins Target For Cool Never Fades

The brilliant, long running woodtype foundry the Hamilton Type Museum has had a busy couple of years. Open since 1880, the museum spent many years floundering, barely keeping the flame going and the doors open, the subject of which became the superb documentary Typeface. Following the release of Typeface, many changes have taken place - first in the form of new ownership and operations from the great Moran brothers, who brought fresh blood and vision to the struggling museum.

It seems that the Moran brothers resurrection is now going at full swing. Hamilton has now partnered with Target to create a clothing line for Fall. It is so cool to see old woodblocks, some over a hundred years old, used for a contemporary fashion line. This is living typography, living history in the true spirit of the museum itself. Awesome.

From Steven Heller:

Target's goal, however, was not to make wood type fashionable—"we just found the fashion within wood type," said Alexin, who asked designers to make hand-pressed prints at the museum, take them home, and then toy with scale, layering, and color, and after injecting wit, create the "eclectic collection of vintage graphic tees, hoodies, and more." Target's fall campaign, based on the conceit that "Cool Never Fades" and what was cool 25 or even 50 years ago will be cool again, builds on the notion that the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum "speaks to this growing affinity towards heritage and a resurgence of retro among our younger guests," Alexin said.

Check out Hamilton here. Check out Heller's full article here.

PS - Thanks Kelly for the heads up.