“The primal form of all dwelling is not a house but a case. This bears the imprint of its dweller.”

-Walter Benjamin…

Design we love: an old wagon jack?

We saw this strange rustic object in Robin Fraser’s shop–called REC + ART HISTORY–on Queen West last week. He explained that it was a wagon jack, for hoisting up your wagon and fixing its ailing wheel. It has a …

Design we love: chandelier feathers

At Symbolist, an intriguing and always mysterious second-hand store at 1080 Queen Street West, there is a big basket filled with these charming metal feathers. They cost a mere $3.00 each, and while they once apparently graced a chandelier …

It doesn’t matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.”

-Elias Canetti…

Art we love: ceramics by Robert Archambeau

We’ve not always been big fans of ceramics–a lot of it seems artsy and sentimental– but we’ll always make an exception for the exquisite stoneware pieces of veteran ceramics artist Robert Archambeau. Archambeau, who won the Governor General’s Award in …

“A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is architecture, music is…it’s all structure. Essential. I use it as language.”

– Architect and theorist John Hejduk.…

Art we love: the happy zones by Jose Ciria

For his third exhibition at the Christopher Cutts Gallery–Window Dreamer–New York based Spanish painter Jose Ciria has produced a suite of vast, chromatically explosive paintings which, while they may indeed invoke what the gallery calls the “sanguinity and terra …

As Andrea Branzi writes in his book, Learning from Milan, “we live in a megasystem of furnishings and fittings, within a gigantic lightscape, in a wired-up territory in which an infinity of terminals are linked together, like an all-embracing

Design we love: Industrial Storm’s cracked coffee table

This lean, noble table–Industrial Storm‘s Cracked Coffee Table–is visually powerful enough to be regarded as both furniture and sculpture. Described by Industrial Storm’s Hanson Tan as “Asian inspired with a contemporary sensibility,” the table features a top …

Introducing WORLDFinger

WORLDFfinger is an entertainment communications system by which the user can control any number of  computers, TVs, sound systems, DVD players, gaming systems and the like–all from one, simple-to-use control tablet.  The elegant WORLDfinger concept was developed by Gary Silverberg, …

Design we love: Freitag messenger bags

The Swiss design firm Freitag has been creating its unique, ecologically impeccable line of bags since 1993. They are made of recycled truck tarpaulins, unraveled seat belts, old bicycle inner tubes and recycled airbags. The company’s Top Cat bag is …

According to Italian architect and designer, Andrea Branzi, the city is “a permanent contradiction,” a “stable chaos.”

Christina Zeidler of The Gladstone Hotel

There are two venerable cultural landmarks–institutions, really– on Queen Street West. One is the self-consciously glamorous Drake Hotel (about which we’ll be posting material here shortly) and the other is the no less glamorous but possibly more culturally earnest …

The art of mate drinking

The graceful and sociable art of drinking Mate — the traditional South American infused tea made from steeped leaves and twigs of the yerba mate plant — is so complex, one really needs instruction of what is actually a whole …

WORLDFinger in four questions

We talked recently, at the Art Condos Testing Centre in Toronto, with Art Condos developer Gary Silverberg about his cutting-edge WORLDFinger media control system.

WORLDFinger—which is an elegant, highly sophisticated tool for managing all your media devices from one single …

Woolfitt’s: staffed by artists, for artists

Ben Woolfitt has been a painter for forty years and, for the same amount of time, has run his famous art supply store on Queen Street West. We talked to him recently about both his art and his business.

Woolfitt’s …

Art we love: Tidal Waves and Sea Bathers by Y.M. Whelan

By the time you read this, Y.M. Whelan’s sparkling exhibition at the Fran Hill Show Room–called Book of Dreams: New Paintings–will probably be officially over, but gallerist Fran …

Design we love: Is driftwood making a comeback?

We remember (admittedly, it was quite a long time ago) when driftwood was considered to be a really chic design accent–people were putting soft, sinuous hunks of it here and there (on mantlepieces, on bookshelves, in the corners of rooms). …

Are smart condos the next step?

Technology is increasingly prevalent in our day-to-day lives. To stay ahead of the curve and provide customers with added value, this is something many industries have to take into account. In our most recent interview with Gary Silverberg, we …

“Consider this: all the ants on the planet, taken together, have a biomass greater than that of humans.  Ants have been incredibly industrious for millions of years. Yet their productiveness nourishes plants, animals and soil. Human industry has been in

Design we love: Herman Miller meets Julie Jenkinson

Here’s a charming example of revitalization. For her sprightly reimagining of  classic Herman Miller seating designs from the 1970s (by Don Chadwick), Toronto-based designer Julie Jenkinson has reupholstered the chairs in her crisp Animaze fabric, silkscreening her drawings onto 100% …

The French Line at Lafayette Bistro

Great French food is not all that easy to find—nor is it easy to find a warm, comfortable, persuasively French provincial bistro that can provide it. Our answer is the snug little Lafayette Bistro in the Queen West village area, …

“It seems to me that architecture is radiated by the building and does not clothe it, that it is an aroma rather than a drapery; an integral party of it and not a shell.”

Le Corbusier…

“I am business.
I am Profit and Loss.
I am Beauty come into the Hell of the Practical”

Benjamin  de Casseres, Mirrors of New York, 1926, quoted by Rem Koolhaas in his Delirious New York, 1978.…

Design we love: Prairie tables

What might first appear as mere abstract detailing in the eccentric shapes of these sleek, white, interlocking tables turns out to have geographic meaning: the tables, which have MDF tops and solid ash legs, actually come in the shape of …