We’re beginning to settle in to our life in Amsterdam, and the new neighborhood is an art deco dreamscape. The grand Apollo House, built in 1939, at the peak of the machine age, is just around the corner: a masterpiece of 20th century architecture by the famed Dutch architect Dirk Roosenburg, grandfather of Rem Koolhaas. The building gives the distinct impression that it has just weighed anchor in port, and the city just collapsed into form around it. Somehow it also looks both completely of its time and entirely contemporary. The surrounding area buildings, built in the Amsterdam style of the 1920s, have beautiful details too, with rounded corners and port windows and geometric forms that feel elegant and friendly in a way that later modernist architecture does not.
In addition to exploring the new area, I’ve been continuing my generative line studies, inspired by the recent frigid weather of snow and ice freezing around reeds in the nearby canal. I also began several jewelry concept sketches, and have noticed the lozenge shapes of the local deco architecture creeping into my work.