“The chair is the closest thing to a person. You can give it personal expression. Obviously, it has been just as important for me to make sensible cabinets. Everything in a house must definitely not be too artistic. One thing should accentuate the other. There needs to be a neutral background. In my view, cabinets and the like must be something that works. Chairs, too. But cabinets don’t need personal expression.”
— Hans J. Wegner
Editor’s note: Hans Wegner’s “Fish Cabinet” is one of my favorite pieces of Wegner’s case pieces. Designed for the 1944 Cabinetmaker’s Guild Exhibition, the cabinet appeared to be in line with the sober work of Kaare Klint and his students. But when the front was opened it revealed an intense intarsia scene that was executed by Wegner himself. Wegner cut the veneer with a pocketknife and assembled the intarsia in a week of intense work. While several commentators have imbued this piece with meaning it probably doesn’t have, I just like it for what it is. It reminds me of a tool chest. Plain on the outside….
The exterior of the partial mansard-roof building. Though the paint job is new, we’ll be repainting it in more historically appropriate colors.
Don’t you hate how every Lost Art Press project takes years to complete?
Me too.
After more than three years of work, Lucy and I have found a building for Lost Art Press where we will live out the rest of our days, making stuff and writing about it. We have come to an agreement with the owner of a circa-1890 commercial building with a living space above. If nothing goes wrong, it will be ours at the end in late August or early September.
The building is located in a residential neighborhood in Covington, Ky., that is off Main Street in a particularly German part area. The building first appeared in city records about 1890 as Jos. Horstmann, a “Dealer in staple and Fancy Groceries, Liquors, Cigars &c.” Two Germans lived above the store at that time – a baker and a stonemason.
The store remained a grocery and saloon for many years – switching to soft drinks during Prohibition – and was a meeting place for organizations such as the Latonia Mutual Aid Society and the Deutscher Pioneer Verein, a German publishing group. By the middle of the 20th century, it was a cafe. In the later part of the century it was a jazz club and, finally, a lesbian bar.
A view of the interior of the current bar. We will keep the vintage bar on the left. The black paint and tile will be replaced.
We have no desire to become bartenders, so we will convert the first floor to a storefront with a hand-tool workshop, offices, library and photo studio. The upstairs will be our living quarters. The rear of the building has a small courtyard, plus a two-bay garage for a car and a few machines.
These changes will take place during the next four years as we get our youngest through high school and off to college. So we’ll have plenty of time to do the work and do it right.
Have no fear that this blog is going to become the daily diary of This Old Storefront. While we enjoy fixing up old buildings, I much prefer building furniture and writing about it. But there will be a change of scenery. And I’ll probably sell off a last hoard of surplus tools to help make improvements that I cannot do myself.
And when it’s done, we’ll invite everyone to come see it.
I leave for England tomorrow to teach for two weeks at the New English Workshop and am looking forward to the break from the real estate game.
During the last few months we have been on an Unfun House of Mirrors adventure through the land of commercial real estate. We almost ended up with a new headquarters building last month until the sellers decided to act like the crazy I’m-getting-a-divorce people that they are.
It was a crushing disappointment (read: we finished that box of wine), but I have been touring buildings every day since and have been making real estate agents somewhat miserable (sorry, not sorry).
While we are dedicated to the Covington city center, we have widened our search a little. We are still looking only at commercial buildings, but now we are including law offices and the like. These don’t always have a formal storefront, but they do have a big open front public space for benches, books and whatever else we cook up for the space.
But for now, I can stop thinking about zoning overlays and focus on nailing things in England. With a big hammer. Joy.
“Even when (Hans) Wegner was vacationing at his summer cottage with his family and some friends, his mind never stopped working. One day at the beach, he dug a hollow in some sand to experiment with sitting positions and found one in which you could be reclining and yet still see your surroundings, thereby inventing a new way for a chair to hold someone. With the design of the Flag Halyard Chair, Wegner proved – just as he had with the three shell chair – that he could create something radically innovative with new materials. There is little of the cabinetmaker’s tradition in the chair, but there is plenty of handiwork for the person tasked with covering the chair in 250 meters of flag halyard.”
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“Kaare Klint said that it (The Flag Halyard) reminded him of a chair for a gynecological exam.”
— Both quotes are from “Wegner: Just One Good Chair” (Hatje Cantz) by Christian Holmsted Olesen
