DesiSi

If Batman moved to Singapore, he would dig a cave under Parkview Square, below the underpass and the nearby MRT. During the day he would conduct business on the top floor, just below the art deco gargoyles on the facing and above the 3 story tall wine cellar and the Austrian Embassy.

At 144M (472 feet) in height, Parkview Square looms over the buildings in its immediate vicinity, providing a Art Deco façade that brings a hint of Gotham to the downtown core. The interior is opulent, matching the best of the Art Deco interiors in Miami. The exterior is far darker than the surrounding buildings, cladded—according to Wikipedia—in granite, bronze, lacquer, and glass.

Photos are provided by xmatt, via flickr under CC/BY license. Take a look.
























Adidas Feishu

Listing anything by Adidas seems like cheating. There are other, more boutique shoe design outfits (such as SBTG) that are native to Singapore. At the same time, I haven’t seen these shoes in the US, and they are cheap (a rarity for Adidas) and appealing. After spotting them, I found out that the shoes are intended for competitive table tennis. Now I’m off to find some custom table tennis paddles (I am sure that someone makes these: by all rights they should be like skateboard decks.)

Posted by JB at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments

AirDivision sits somewhere between downscale Cappellini and upscale CB2. The furniture, which remains too sleek and minimal for my taste, is offset by other AirDivision accessories, from shag rugs to a cowhide throw, sold within the Air, Plank, and Funktion lines.

In addition to these lines, AirDivision also carries items from Hulger and Next. Next, a German design firm, makes the terrific Ventilux fan. On the Hulger side, I can finally pick up that old school telephone handset that I have been waiting for.

The AirDivison website is a bit of a flash based mess. The workdesk background reminds me of the cluttered desk design on JK Rowling’s website.

"Breathe Me" (Sia) was playing inside the store when I walked in. The Zero 7/ Electronica sound fits with the store motif.

The Ventilux photo comes from a German store/ gallery website: Concona. I grabbed this because the fan is not listed on the Air Division site and the photo at the Next site was lacking.

Posted by JB at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments

Located one street down from Cappellini and close to the Mint Museum of Toys, in a third floor walkup that runs over one half of an old shophouse. You’ll notice it because of the word “Actually…” spray painted on a square column just in front of the stairway.

While Actually carries several interesting accessories (Slauch Bicycle Tire Belts) and some well known labels (Le Tigre) it focuses on two things: high end jeans (Taverniti, Yen, Sacred Blue, Edwin, 575, etc.) and Freitag Bags. It has an entire room devoted to these bags, which are all made from recovered truck tarps and which are terribly popular among bike couriers and their would be counterparts in the United States. The staff is friendly and it is clear that they really like the goods that they carry. I’m inclined to agree.


Actually... 29a Seah Street Singapore

































MINT MUSEUM OF TOYS

Just up the street from Actually... the Mint Toy Museum devotes five narrow floors in glasscased homage to classic American toys. Many of the characters, dolls, and trucks are from the 1930's to 1950's. I saw everything from early fritz the Cat to 1970's Batman. Many of the toys give me a strong Art Deco feel. There are a few European and Asian toys as well but the bulk of the collection will make you feel that you've been set down on your grandpa’s rug, surrounded by shiny plastic Popeye characters, playing with tin metal trucks while a western blares from the television behind you.

Mint Museum of Toys 26 Seah Street Singapore

Posted by JB at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments

Cappellini is just up the street from Urban Foundry, near Cream, another interior design store. Everyone clusters in this way, forming small pockets around the city. Fortune Centre, for example, is a shopping complex with three floors devoted to health food shops and restaurants. I live right over a row of bridal wear shops that wind their way around this street and down the parallel street behind me.

Cappellini is part of a chain of stores based in Italy. Some of the designs are reminiscent of Urban Foundry but it seems on the whole more colorful. Like most upscale interior design stores, it straddles a world where furniture is meant to be used and a parallel world where furniture appears in galleries and museums and is meant entirely for viewing.

I did see a few items that I really like (these are taken from the website so I need to verify that they are available at the Singapore location—I’m sure that you can order them.) One of these is lounge chair that may support two people:


(two pargraphs deleted)

I need to go back to Cappellini and try to locate this chair. If it turns out that I'm wrong and the chair does not support two people, then I take everything back.

6 October 2006: Bah, the chair has been discontinued. At the same time, I took another look at this:



It does not look like much from this photo, but there are thick green zippers that run between each of the cubes, making it modular. The sales representative said that people typically use the zippers when moving the unit around because it makes it easy to transport and wedge through doorways. That's nice, but I'd like to get six sofas and make a sofa monster. Armchair units are also sold. The off-white fabric might also make an effective diffuser. I want my zip-in lamp!

Cappellini: via MOD.Living Pte Ltd, 331 North Bridge Road, Singapore 65.6336.2286

Posted by JB at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments

There is a lounge in Boston, Massachusetts called the Middlesex. It became popular in 2005/2006 and nouveau business types only recently divorced from their art school pretenses spent Friday and Saturday evenings there, dressed in severe Boston clothing, chatting each other up across gray padded benches that could be steered around by coaster. Furniture sold at Urban Foundry would fit well in this lounge. It would do well, in fact, in many parts of Boston and New York, where the winter drives some residents to seek severe environments. While several of the designs seem too close to minimalist IKEA, others strike me as interesting. I’m posting those. Many of the designs require environmental upkeep. They won’t look good in a house unless the owner is meticulous. Clorox should sponsor them.
Urban Foundry: 18 Purvis Street #01-01 Singapore (65.6339.6381)

Posted by JB at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

The artwork to the left is by Elizabeth Thomson, who has been exhibiting at the Contemporary Asian Art Fair in the Suntec Convenition Center, c/o Koru, a gallery in Hong Kong. Those leaves are bronze, individually painted. They are offset from the canvas. I noticed the leaves at a distance. The canvas was surrounded by other artworks and in the back of an exhibition packed with paintings. The only painting to stand out as sharply was an eight foot by thirty foot monster that cheated by using pound after pound of cadmium red to induce an immediate nervous reaction.

Posted by JB at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments