Monday, January 21, 2013

Oneiric rooms

vintage ad signed by Nourot

Did you know that dreams about new rooms in the house are considered to be among some of the most frequent to occupy our nights? That came as a surprise to me though I'm familiar with the idea of the house representing the self - attics for the intellect and basements for the unconscious. I also went through a phase with house dreams that often concerned stairways and passages, but discovering unknown new rooms...? That seems more like a day dream!

Unknown rooms = unknown resources, unknown contentions/threats.
If I could discover a new room in my house
(which is not a house but an apartment  - condo doesn't sound right - so I can't really add on at will),

it might be...

photo: Antonio Martinelli from Elle Decoration

1) a jardin d'hiver, veranda, a sun room, a conservatory. Yes, the word counts. Something like this one  up on stilts and designed by Eiffel before city planners became so difficult about add-ons.


photo: Antonio Martinelli from Elle Decoration

This is not the way I would furnish it, but the space is delightful.

photo source to be filled in
furniture by Richard Peduzzi 

2) the true library that haunts me. Now I do realize that this is not the most practical set up and my back would certainly not like the chair, but here in the land of Morpheus, all is possible.


Anna Alma-Tadema 

3) or yet again, a fumoir. This sensuous painting, filled with rich surfaces yet not too heavy, has always drawn me in. I was surprised when I saw the actual painting recently to discover how small it was. Still, it's big enough to contain a dream. The notion of a smoking room is old fashioned, quaint, but it gives a pretext for full-blown oriental decor and rich colors, opulent fabrics. The talent of the painter and the polished parquet here assure that the scene has nothing of a musty, static illustration from the annals of decoration. Smoking isn't my fancy, pipe dreams aside, but the tipple from my tumbler would be greatly enhanced in this atmosphere.


For more information on the veranda designed by Eiffel look here

8 comments:

  1. Would love to live there Gesbi. I too have had house dreams for most of my adult life. I love those dreams even though there are hidden doors and staircases and ghosts too.

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  2. Donna, apparently all those rooms are what we are and childhood naturally has a lot to do with that. Without being overly psychological, it seems those dreams do always leave a sense of wonder. We know they are important.

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  3. gesbi

    what can i do?
    how can i get there???
    love all of it...
    and you.

    xox

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  4. This is timelessly relevant; the operant concept is the "pretext." The entirety of Mr Jefferson's Monticello is a pretext, subdivided into sub-pretexts, and continuously reworked and only at great exploitation and self-ruin, before eventually more or less settled. What we respect is the inviolability of the pretext. It corresponds with Summerson's aedicular theory of the Gothic, the notion of edifices' being accretions, sometimes concentric, sometimes eccentric. Homo ludens needs a room; the rest is rent.

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  5. i dream about past houses often....especially after a move of course. or houses in france......

    but new houses? greenhouses? that takes place in the daytime. but frequently!

    xo!39 68

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  6. Interesting!

    I hardly dream about new rooms, but have dreams about scary things from outside the house. What to make of that? Well, I do adore my house:)

    Will try to to make some bunad pictures in the not too distant future.

    Reagrds, Linnea

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  7. Hi Kristin. Might it be every man's home is his fortified castle? Before I knew the commenter par excellence, 'Home Before Dark,' I thought her name refered to what was ominous outside as opposed to the safety of home. Well, maybe there is something of that, too.

    I'm looking forward to the bunad pictures. Whenever you're ready!

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