The Allure of Blunt Forces

It's where dark meets light, hard meets soft, and density meets sparsity; that place where oppositional forces create an alluring energy. Blame human consciousness: In our non-zenlike moments our minds tend toward a continuous whorl of tension. Such is creature life on earth. This may explain why we're so often drawn to blunt polar forces, whether in fashion, in a room, a chair, or a jungle.









































Humans crave order and yet we don't trust it. This could explain why great design is often found to be that which pushes order closer to the edge.























The graceful chair, edged in lace, standing before the industrial-like rivets and stainless wall cover. The dark-stained matte hardwood floor snuggles easily with billowing drapes and a lamp shade's dangling appendages.





















The libertine chaos of the rain forest is smoothed with the minimalist geometry of modern Shangri-La.












Sweet dreams to be found beneath a cave's coarse canopy. A rage of raw stone is softened with forced right angles and the sweep of white linen. All around the delicate aroma of aged Mother Earth and the quietude of her belly: Bliss.

Where wallpaper was; where it ought to be (again).

Wallpaper designed by British architect Owen Jones (1809-1874), the Frank Gehry of the Victorian era.

Jones was an early devotee of Orientalism, the rage of his age. He famously published a fanboy book of drawings on the Alhambra Palace in Granada that brought the virtues of Islamic decoration to Europe and the West.

Jones set his eye to textiles and silks as well. Imagine a stultified Victorian society impaled on walls covered just so. More at V and A images.