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Freeze Frame

A closer look at an artful solution from August

Karen D. Singh -- Interior Design, 8/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Larsen's Legacy

To screen the 20-foot-high glazed elevation of a living room in New York, Bromley Caldari Architects selected a Jack Lenor Larsen textile. Quite avant-garde when it debuted in 1959, Onward remains cutting-edge on several fronts. The handwoven linen-silk sheer's diagonal pattern results from an innovative oblique weft—whereas, in most weaves, warp and weft threads cross at right angles. Equally unusual, Larsen's fabrication technique prominently exposes the linen warp yarns for a textured look. (Available in only one color, ocher.) A 36-inch vertical and 48-inch horizontal repeat make the fabric ideal for large-scale installations, such as Bromley Caldari's lofty living room. "The Odd Couple," page 168.

To see more of Larsen's groundbreaking textiles—as well as their sources of inspiration—visit "Jack Lenor Larsen: Creator and Collector" at New York's Museum of Arts & Design through August 29. The exhibit surveys the full scope of his career as related to objects he's acquired over a lifetime. From a sculptural Wharton Esherick table to Dorothy Gill Barnes's mulberry-twig Corkscrew Willow Cube, they reveal Larsen's abiding fascination with form and structure. In the case of Onward, for example, he deconstructed the very medium of fabric to its essence.

Also revelatory are several of Larsen's discontinued designs. They include the vivid printed-velvet Samarkland, 1968, and Magnum, a Mylar-vinyl blend designed as a curtain for the Phoenix Civic Plaza's Symphony Hall in in 1970—and too expensive to produce today.

It's often difficult to distinguish old from new, proof positive of Larsen's timeless vision.