The Secret History of the Bauhaus Bauhaus turns 100 this year. The German art school is best known for its minimal unadorned designs that combine clean curves and geometry and for its embrace of the technical and the commercial. (See the Barcelona chair by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich; or the sleep MT8 lamp by William Wagenfeld and …

Why is Bauhaus such a big deal in design? From Weimar to Tel Aviv, visit the monuments to this century-old revolution. BY ANDREW CURRY ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC | OCT 19, 2011 THAT IPHONE IN your pocket? Your simple Ikea bookshelf? The glass box architecture of your local office park? You can thank a century-old design movement for their sleek …

The term “Art Deco” has become a collective term for almost any object of conscious design, whether sophisticated or naïve, if it was created between the First and Second World Wars. Included in this bewildering array are objects arising from opposite philosophies and representing all levels of aesthetic quality. Art Deco, as the term is used today, has been applied especially to the decorative arts (furniture, ceramics, silver, interior design) as well as to architecture, graphics, painting and sculpture. Artists as different as Mies van der Rohe and Marie Larencin, Fernand Leger and Rene Lalique have been included under the broad umbrella of this stylistic term.

The Art Deco – also called style moderne – movement in the decorative arts and architecture originated in the 1920s, and developed into a major style in Western Europe and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited.

Macassar ebony, Indian ebony, marble wood, coromandel, calamander wood, tendu, temru, tunki, timbruni. Ebony is a collective trade name given to all species of Diospyros, which have a predominately black heartwood, by contrast to the North American white ebony, also known as persimmon. Macassar ebony from Indonesia is more variegated still. With a heartwood that is dark brown to black interspersed with contrasting bands of yellow to golden brown, Macassar ebony yields a bold and attractive look by offsetting the darkest of the dark woods with a variety of color.

ECHOES GIULIANO BEKOR ART: Internationally recognized photographer holds a portfolio that includes fashion, beauty, celebrity, advertising, and fine art. Electric and sensual, Echoes captures the interplay of oil, water and organic materials as they bleed together in an languid environment. Shot in- camera with no special digital effects, this series renders a shape shifting and often kaleidoscopic vision of sexuality, …