Around Town.

Life has given me an opportunity that I’m sure I’m not going to get again, or at least soon. For the last two months I’ve been enjoying my country and visiting friends I have all over the place. All of them are not only best friends, but childhood friends. It has been fantastic, overwhelmingly beautiful and for sure rewarding.

Here are a few spaces, spaces within spaces and other spaces, from north to south/east to west, I would like to share with you.

COSTA VICENTINA (Southwest, Coast)

My friend's house, an Algarve house.

Costa Vicentina has the best beaches in Portugal - View from Martinhal Beach.

Spaces lost in time, I love them.

Natural Park, a protected area where you can get lost and enjoy great views, whether to the sea or inland.

BEJA (Inland)

Beja's castle, apparently the highest tower in Portugal.

Great detail. Balconies, my architectural passion.

Street lamps, another detail I photograph quite often.

LISBOA (West)

Graça's Church.
Remember In Portugal With Love - Lisboa? Click to see more pictures.

BRAGA (Northwest)

I've posted a few times about this city. Click here and here to see more pictures.

ÉVORA (Inland)

Probably the most beautiful ruins I've ever seen in my life.

A detail very much inspired in Chinese architecture, isn't it?

A city with lots of peacocks.

The Bones Chapel, built in the 16th century with bones of the graves of the town, was a prayer and meditation about human condition. The interior is completely covered with human bones, has the solemn, gloomy and tragic atmosphere of a crypt.

Diana Temple, a Roman landmark dating from the 2nd century (it is one of the Iberian Peninsula's best preserved Roman monuments).


A worth watching video about Portuguese beauty.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Health, Love & Money is what I wish for us all in 2011. Cheers!

The Harmonious City.

Braga is the most harmonious city in Portugal. Whether architecture, interiors or urban interventions, the surroundings are considered and aesthetically respected. You walk along the streets and feel everything is in the right space, with perfect proportions and even the exact color. Contemporary interventions don't overwhelm the baroque architecture which is prominent in this northern city. Total delight.

As I am here spending time with my best friend, I could not ignore the opportunity to post about my favorite building.

Hope you like it, as much as I do. In case you live nearby, visit S. José de S. Lázaro and admire the careful and precise contemporary interventions they did in such astonishing building, which was once the Palace Senhora-A-Branca.

I love the way clouds reflected on the windows blend so well with the façade's color.

Detail on the west side.

I particular like the repetitive arched windows, though with different fronts.


On these two last pictures you can see how subtly the contemporary intervention embraces the ruins on the left.

In case you know who the architects were, please let me know.

Another article about Braga
In Portugal With Love - Braga

Influencers.

A must see video about influencers in the creative industries.

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

Who influences you?

Rough Luxe Hotel #1

For some time I've been planning to post photographs about the Rough Luxe Hotel in London I've shot early September.
Here's a few of my favourite details on such decadent yet luxurious space in King's Cross.

Tables and chairs by Piet Hein Eek

Original stairs

Photograph with Philippe Starck

Photograph by Massimo Listri on the left and original door on the right (love the ways these two blend so well through colours and textures)

Original lock on a bathroom door

Magazines Library.

As funny as it might sound, it took me a while to display my favorite magazines. I tried several ways with different objects to help it out. Finally I decided to use one of my Louis Ghost Armchair by Philippe Starck as a starting point. Here it is and I like it.


I know, calling magazines display a library could be a bit off, but you know, they are such an amazing source of information and inspiration that I like to think them as important as a books (not to mention, of course, some of them are more expensive than actually books).

Have an inspiring weekend surrounded by amazing magazines.

Related articles
Reading Is A Very Personal Thing

Mercedes 280SL Automatic.

A Mercedes 280SL Automatic has been the classic of my dreams forever. It inspires confidence, power and love for life. No wonder fashion brands are using such icons to send the message to all cosmopolitan women in this world.

Do you have the car of your dreams?



Photos taken in London, 2006.


Love, Chloé - the making of the commercial where a Mercedes is an important feature.

Staircases.

"We don't think enough about staircases.
Nothing was more beautiful in old houses than the staircases.
Nothing is uglier, colder, more hostile, meaner, in today's apartment buildings.
We should learn to live more on staircases.
But how?"

Georges Perec in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces.





Photos taken in a Lisbon building.

Other posts about staircases
French Hall & Stairs
Stairs Somewhere In Chicago
I Love Cast Iron Stairs

"A Soul To The Things We Call Inanimate".

Probably I've said before everything (and everyone) is linked to a story in my own story or rather history. It's a character in the physical world. Has a personality. A life.

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

The Importance Of Being An Antique.

The Antiques world fascinates me since ever. As a young, very young girl, I used to go with an Aunt and Uncle to the most famous fair in Lisbon, Feira da Ladra. They used to sell antiques and vintage objects in this flea market. From 19th century broken jars to oil lamps from dictatorship times, they sold it all. I loved to be there. To learn the business and the variants that make an object desirable. All the buzz, national and international people with different ideas of aesthetic, it used to be one of my favorite summer holidays.

Many reasons to love and to bet on antiques, but there are two worth to enhance here: the amazing stories they carry with them and for being one of the safest investments ever - two interesting paradoxical reasons to make an easy deal, don't you think?


This week a great article about "the real dealers" in the Financial Times underlines the importance of being an antique and the new wave of "dealer-decorator".

Antiques from Hilary Batstone.

"A dozen years ago, antiques collectors were more likely to be connoisseurs for whom décor wasn't first priority, but the current generation of buyers with their sights on the very top end of the antique furniture market are a markedly different demographic (...) They want to weave their finds into their beautiful styled daily lives. Nowadays, those chasing the prime designs of the past are turning to the dealer-decorator - a talented hybrid; part-trader, part-interior designer, who not only supplies stellar pieces but also conjures them into fresh, modern homescapes" - How To Spend It by Financial Times.

Drawing room by Max Rollitt, London.

A George III sofa and bespoke burr table, London.

1865 Boneshaker bicycle.

Kitchen's furnished with 20th century metal industrial chairs.

Click here to read "the real dealers" story.
Images from How To Spend It.