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

Write home

mail box seen when wandering Capri

5bis

Outside, marks of affection from his fans.

Inside, nothing much has changed.

 

2 avril 1928 - 2 mars 1991

 

these pictures and more from: Serge Gainsbourg Legende

 

Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Cette chanson était la tienne
C'était ta préférée
Je crois
Qu'elle est de Prévert et Kosma

Et chaque fois les feuilles mortes
Te rappellent à mon souvenir
Jour après jour
Les amours mortes
N'en finissent pas de mourir

Avec d'autres bien sûr je m'abandonne
Mais leur chanson est monotone
Et peu à peu je m' indiffère
A cela il n'est rien
A faire

Car chaque fois les feuilles mortes
Te rappellent à mon souvenir
Jour après jour
Les amours mortes
N'en finissent pas de mourir

Peut-on jamais savoir par où commence
Et quand finit l'indifférence
Passe l'automne vienne
L'hiver
Et que la chanson de Prévert

Cette chanson
Les Feuilles Mortes
S'efface de mon souvenir
Et ce jour là
Mes amours mortes
En auront fini de mourir

Lecaron Architecture as seen by Jean-Jacques Salvador

Toulaho

If you look at the architect Jacques-Emile Lecaron's website you'll find factual images of the houses he designed over a period of time in the the rue des Fougères, Clamart as well as some of his other notable buildings. Photographer, Jean-Jacques Salvador, has taken these already imaginative constuctions and gone a step further giving them another dimension. An interesting example of one art beckoning to another.
(Click on the photos, they are best viewed enlarged.)

Toulaho is Lecaron's own residence/agency. A contracted form of  "tout là-haut", it's name simply means that it is the house at the top of the street.  If its glass block facade makes a display case for the goings-on inside, there is also a classicly contoured house of green such as a child might draw - square + triangle - that has been encrusted for the dwelling's more intimate spaces. It's a little cabin in the woods that appears to float in the reflection of the trees, or then, some see it as a cuckoo clock fixed to a wall.

Lecaron explains,
"Je l’ai rêvée maison libre, maison qui vole, maison dans les arbres.”

I dreamed of it as a house that was free, a house that flies, a house in the trees.

one of the 7 houses in Clamart

Reflections, shadows, and views through the windows show inhabitants, intimate memories and passing events. Salvador's photos are rarely just interesting angles and light. He reworks the scene, associating it with the  pieces needed to complete the puzzle. There's somtimes a breath of wind, but what blows there?

Take a closer look.

Derrière le Miroir

Where does the the photographer's fantasy take up and the architects's leave off ?

Jacques-Emile Lecaron conceived each architectural design in keeping with the personalities of their owners. Salvador then set up the occupants in the houses according to each individual story.  Both architect and photographer are inspired by the universe of fairy tales as a souce of wonder, mystery, sometimes of fear.

 Tombeau de l'oeil oiseau

This truncated column, also designed by Lecaron,  is a control site for polution levels of the river Seine

located on the Ile Saint-Germain. Salvador's photo consecrates the monument.

On the silver screen

The other day I had the pleasure of discovering Mankiewicz' A Letter to Three Wives. The story was intriguing, the dialogues sharply chiseled, the filming original. It's the story of three women who are leaving for an outing when they receive a letter from their mutual friend, Addie Ross. The letter announces that she is about to leave and never return - with one of their husbands. Addie is a sort of Rebeca we never see but whose voice narrates the story, a powerful seductress as much envied by each of the women as she is admired by each of their husbands. The fact that each couple is living through some difficulties increases the women's feelings of insecurity. Whose husband is it?

We see the house that each woman lives in. Deborah lives with Brad in a big house with a colonnaded porch. Addie tells us that Brad, who gave her her first black eye and her first kiss, bought the house before going off to war.



Deborah on her way to pick up Rita for a picnic with the other wives, while the men...?


Rita Phipps ( Ann Sothern) has been waiting for Deborah in front of her home in a neighborhood shared by those on their way up and those on their way down. "Rita is on her way up and wouldn't have it any other way," says the voice of Addie. She rushes back in to say goodbye to the twins, oblivious of her husband, George (Kirk Douglas).

The beautiful Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) is from a shack on the wrong side of the tracks. It shakes and rattles when the train passes by but Lora Mae stays cool and steady for she knows what she wants...

and gets it.

Lora Mae guesses the identity of the beautiful woman in the portrait. We only see the back of the frame.

Rita Phipps is the working woman of the three. An ambitious soap opera writer for the radio, she invites her over-bearing employer for dinner trying to win her favor. Her attempts to put her best face forward naturally include sprucing up home and husband. They purchase expensive Scotch for the occasion, though "Bourbon is a better drink," because it's in fashion with "those showbiz types." Husband is expected to wear his tuxedo and the housekeeper has a new uniform complete with a saucy cap that she detests - all this is designed to impress. George, a school teacher, is indulgent but fairly put off by his wife's attempt at pretence.

Rita: People in the show business, you know what I mean, those kind of

people always drink scotch.

George: Well, I know what you mean, but I wish you wouldn't say it in radio English. "That kind", not "those kind".

Rita: There are men who say "those kind" who earn $100,000 dollars a year.

George: There are men who say "stick 'em up" who earn more.

I don't expect to do either.

There is tension in the air with such a cocktail of personalities. The guests bicker and the oafish boss and her submissive husband won't touch the Scotch though the others find it very necessary to partake. There is a clatter...

when it comes time to dine. Sadie (Thelma Ritter) unveils the dining area by removing a screen Betty had apparently thought a more elegant way to proceed. Ah ha! The ultimate sign of

Rita's pretense!

The cumbersome folding screen practically comes tumbling through the viewing screen,

a struggle ensues,

the cap goes askew.

As Sadie wrestles to put it aside, she sighs wisely saying,
"I tol' ya the screen was a crummy idea. Soup's on!"

Of course, this was a great screen moment for me ! Clever Mankiewicz.
I leave you to you to find out about the rest of the story.