Donald A. Wexler, AIA, Wexler Family House, (interior) 1955, Palm Springs, CA
photograph ©Juergen Nogai, 2010
Wexler and Harrison, Wexler Family House (night view), 1955, Palm Springs, CA
photograph © Juergen Nogai, 2010
Wexler and Harrison, Steel House, 1962
photograph © Juergen Nogai 2010
"Donald Wexler practiced architecture during what he calls the “golden age” of California architecture from the immediate postwar years through the 1970s. This was a time when architects enjoyed considerable freedom to employ new materials and technologies in their search for functionally beautiful architecture. The extremes of the desert climate forced Wexler to develop a sustainable architecture, which was not only successful functionally, but achieved a timeless aesthetic appeal. During a career that spanned almost six decades, he designed numerous houses, condominium complexes, as well as banks, office parks and schools."
"Steel and Shade: The Architecture of Donald Wexler", exhibition, Palm Springs Art Museum
(from 01.29.11 to 05.29.11)
Kay Bojesen (1886–1958), a silversmith, became known as one of the Danish applied art's great pioneers thanks to his wooden toys he began to think about in the 1920s. At the beginning he was an apprentice of Georg Jensen, training as a silversmith in 1910. After a few years in Germany and France, he began working as a silversmith in Copenhagen. In the 1930s he developed a more simple, functionalistic style. His silver cutlery set from 1938 won in a stainless version first prize at the Milano Triennial in 1951 and was named "Grand Prix"’. Bojesen is especially known for his design of toys in wood, for instance his guardsman from 1942 and he created a line of craftily devised animals of which several had movable arms and legs. In fact, in the 1930s he realised there was something particularly lively about wood : too curious to restrict himself to the work of refining metals, he began experimenting with other materials. In the course of his exploration, he discovered wood as a material with very special possibilities for industrial treatment and styling. This discovery led to the classic guardsmen and a whole zoological garden taking shape between his hands. The best known is the Monkey from 1951, but also the elephant and the parrot from the 1950s are known by several generations. Kay Bojesen also designed furniture for children, jewellery and objects for the home.
