Inspired Monday Morning: Thomas Struth / June 9, 2014 by Raji Radhakrishnan

You have probably guessed it by now - I have a thing for grand gestures. In fact, grand spaces as cavernous as they are and sometimes impractical and unnecessary, do create a very strong emotion in me. I think it's one of the reasons I absolutely love the great, big museums around the world. I've also learned that grand gestures in design are best appreciated when they go hand in hand with subtle and small gestures. In my work, very few realize the small design juxtapositions that create a rather large and meaningful impact in a very personal way. Never mind they don't always get noticed. They do the job quietly and beautifully. The large gestures certainly do get all the attention - like my murals. But, if I don't exercise the control to select the right space, the right subject, the right scale and colors and most importantly the very meaningful and small gestures that go with the larger ones - mind you they will cease to have the impact they usually do. And almost always it's the smaller, unnoticed gestures that clinch these larger than life designs making the room tell a story.

I can honestly say, I learned these inertia-ted subtleties of design by observing artists I adore. Particularly one - Thomas Struth. His Museum series of photographs enthrall me till date. Each a great story, each an exercise in grandeur and subtlety, the perfect complement of the big and the small. Of pride and humility. Of monumental scale and human proportions. Most importantly of dreams and reality and how they are so necessary to wisk one away to large fantasies only to come right back to the reality of how very small we really are in the grand scheme of things. And you guessed it...il est tout ma tasse de thé!

All Thomas Struth' photos via Tumblr & The New Yorker;

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Leopold's #2 Mural from Raji RM murals collection. Juxtaposed on the adjacent wall is a tiny French wire sculpture propped on a shelf. Think David and Goliath! - Interior Design by Raji RM & Associates;

A most excellent article on this portrait by Thomas Struth and his work in The New Yorker

Raji RM & Associates | Interior Designer & Decorator

Washington DC | New York

Inspired Monday Morning - Anish Kapoor / May 5, 2014 by Raji Radhakrishnan

In a world of mass production, information overload and constant messaging I seem to yearn for the unknown, unseen and often in a way that's unprepared. A core aspect to the work we do here at Raji RM is taking huge risks, within the scope of the project of course. The risks pertain to the untested idea, unseen even by us. Because designers I think are artists at the very basis, pragmatists too, as we define our work within the confines of walls driven by functionality, needs and desires.

It is then only necessary that we voyage as often as possible into the depths of artistry, departing from the every day dictum of practical life and logic, only to come right back with monumental inspiration, chiseling out just a sliver of that learning and deftly applying it to our work in transforming the spaces with meaning and perspective to the discerning eye.

One of the contemporary artists who has never failed to inspire me is Anish Kapoor. The risks he takes in his works are often in the face of adversity with the uninformed and the uninitiated. Yet he pushes each new work to another realm, unexplored or even unidentified, until that perspective is explored through his own works. He plays not just with scale or color but with our minds, our perspectives, our view of ourselves and the world around us. Need I say more...juste ma tasse de thé!

(All photos are from Tumblr & Flickr)

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Raji RM & Associates | Interior Designer & Decorator

Washington DC | New York

Collections & Collectibles: Robert et Jean Cloutier / April 10, 2014 by Raji Radhakrishnan

As designers we are exposed to many beautiful things in our daily life. When I'm shopping for our projects, traveling, dining, reading, visiting and browsing - I find that all these forays are an opportunity to hone the eye and learn something new. In this day and age we are not short of exposure, if anything it's overexposure and hence it is equally important to be able to glean through the millions and zero in on the things that are truly beautiful and make the cut. Quality, material, skilled workmanship, price, age, provenance and uniqueness are all important - some relatively more than others depending on who and what you are shopping for.

Decades ago I stumbled upon a ceramic box given to me as a gift which had a signature at the bottom. I loved the box for it's shape, the sweet birds painted on it and it's fragility. At that time, I had no idea who it was by or even what that signature meant. Many years later rummaging at Paris' Marché aux Puces I stumbled upon a ceramic vase. Vaguely familiar in it's colors and finish, turning it upside down I realized it was the same signature that was on my box. Determined to find out who the signature belonged to and what these wonderful ceramics are about, I talked to a few vendors I knew and soon embarked on a search for more pieces by the "Cloutier Freres". As I discovered more ceramics by these exceptional artists and twin brothers, Robert & Jean Cloutier, my love for their work increased exponentially. While I await the first book on these exceptional ceramicists' works, collecting these whimsical, puts-a-smile-on-your-face, beautifully made pieces est juste ma tasse de thé!

Image on left via maison et toi and on right via Pinterest

Raji RM & Associates | Interior Designer & Decorator

Washington DC | New York

Inspired Monday Morning: Richard Serra / March 31, 2014 by Raji Radhakrishnan

One of the most prolific artists of the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries. An artist who understands scale enough to master it, how to play with it and what it does to human emotions. Scale combined with the power of a single note, a single gesture, a single color. Scale combined with form and material. By quiet observation one of my silent mentors. Juste ma tasse de thé!

Raji RM & Associates | Interior Designer & Decorator

Washington DC | New York

Art in Design: Le Petit Defi - as in Bourgeois Lite! / March 6, 2014 by Shruti Narasimhan

Throwback Thursday #TBT - This is a post Raji wrote in late 2009 for design dossier and it still holds good.

A few years ago, the Guggenheim had a fantastic retrospective of some of the most important works of Louise Bourgeois. As you climbed the winding ramps filled with displays, Bourgeois' two dimensional works led up to three dimensional installations. Some were really large ones like the 'cell' which inspired the design of one of my bathrooms. Among them, an installation called 'Le Defi' meaning 'the challenge' (see photo at right) - a blue painted wooden shelving with rows of old collected glass ware lit up here and there - caught my eye. I was drawn to it partly because at that time, I had set up a small group of my own glassware in a corner of my bathroom counter with one of them being a little vintage cut-glass lamp placed in the center. And I thought, this is something I should do, after all I already have most of the things used in that installation. And then, I forgot about it. That is until this summer when I started to ponder and plan the 'Foyer & Galleries' for the CharityWorks GreenHouse.

As I mentioned before, I chose to treat much of the narrow spaces I designed for the CharityWorks GreenHouse like an art gallery. So, besides hanging works on the walls, I also planned a few art installations mostly using salvage and re-purposing things. One of them in the upstairs landing is a light installation, my own version of 'Le Defi' which I call 'Bourgeois lite!' (see photo below), an example of inspired art and a relatively 'small challenge' when it is 'after Bourgeois' Le Defi'. Instead of a shelving cart I used a vintage book stand. My collection of vintage glass ware and small glass lamps are grouped in the two shelves of the book stand. A 1940s French swing arm lamp provides task light for the book opened to read and an industrial typist chair from the 1920s by the English Co, Tan Sad gives you a perch to sit at the landing and become part of the installation itself.