At the foot of the main staircase of Château Solveig in Gland, Switzerland, interior decorator Gaston Schwartz of Jansen placed a gleaming modernist metal globe perched atop a chrome-and-glass stand. Image from "Jansen" (Acanthus Press, 2006).
Google Earth may have sidelined the old-fashion globe but these spinning evocations of the world we live on possess plenty of decorative punch.
* As shown above, park one at the foot of a sweeping staircase in the manner of Gaston Schwartz, who did just that in the mid 1930s at Château Solveig, the Swiss residence of Anglo-American aviator and Standard Oil heir Francis Francis.
The library of Leeds Castle. Image by Phil Bradley from Flickr.
* Line up a few on the top of towering bookcases, as Stephane Boudin did in the library of Leeds Castle for British client Olive, Lady Baillie. The French interior decorator (who also waved his aesthetic wand over the Kennedy White House) aligned the globes with the narrow-width shelves below, so the globes appear to be finials, and alternated them with large porcelain vessels.
* Flickr contributor NineInchNachosII suggested coating a vintage globe in black gesso and transforming it into a revolving blackboard, as shown in the image above. For step-by-step instructions, click here.
For a wide selection of globes, see visit specialty dealers such as Murray Hudson and George Glazer. A fine source for new globes is 1-World Globes.
4 comments:
Globes are beautifully decorative and useful too. Love the idea of a blackboard globe, though wouldn't recommend defacing an original vintage piece ... nonetheless, a curiously clever use for a contemporary globe shaped ornament.
Anything,globe or otherwise, would pale in comparison to the Château Solveig.
I love our globe. It's completely without attitude. The thing itself seems enough, to me.
Globes are such interesting objects in a room. We have a lovely pair of celestial and terrestrial globes at Carlton Hobbs.
http://www.carltonhobbs.com/viewDetail.asp?strReference=9687
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