Reporducing an amazing body of work.

Moravian Pottery & and Tile Works Museum, Doylestown, PA, USA

This is a piece of Americana from “the Mercer Mile” consisting of  three early examples of site cast concrete building.  Ironically these building were engineering innovations by American Henry Chapman Mercer who thought that industrialization was damaging American society.  The Mercer Museum, Fonthill, his home, and the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works, house collections of American turn of the century decorative arts, especially ceramics and tile work, influenced by the “Arts & Crafts” movement. I plan to make a visit soon.

I have a more compelling reason for offering this post, though.  The tile in the photo immediately caught my attention for its artistic quality, which is what lead me to examine its source.  I found that it is barely a scratch in the surface of an amazing body of work that is actually being reproduced in the still functioning tile works.  These tiles can be purchased for installation in modern building projects.  I am not one to believe in a bucket list,  but the possibility of installing some of these tiles in a yet to be designed residential project is going a long way toward changing my mind.

Are artist and architects interchangeable?

MLS/Web ID: 202076

Historically, many architects have also been artists, Le Corbusier comes immediately to mind.  Judging by this artist studio, though, I am not at all sure that the combination is reversible.  Shock value may deliver a message in a museum installation, but what does it do in the context of a suburban neighborhood?  Does this artist really want his or her home to be landmarked as the place that looks like half of a bad 1980’s contemporary style spec. house?  A real architect could have provided this artist with an elegant studio, both inside and out.