New York for Bibliophiles

The New York Public Library is one of the world’s most celebrated libraries, open to the public, and featured in films from Spiderman to Ghostbusters.  However, if you’re a true bibliophile, you’ll want to check out The Morgan Library & Museum at Madison and 36th.

The stunning library was built between 1902 and 1906 to house financier Pierpont Morgan’s collection of rare materials.  Designed by Charles McKim, the Italian Renaissance-style palazzo consists of 3 grandiose rooms designed to have an intimate feel.

In 1924 the library was turned over, as an extraordinary gift, to the public.  Piermont’s exquisite collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and old master drawings and prints, find their origins ranging from Egypt to the Italian Renaissance to China.  The Morgan has added to this collection over the years, creating one of the finest artistic, literary, and musical collections in the world.  Highlights include a Gutenberg bible, manuscripts from Mozart, and a manuscript journal entry from Henry Davis Thoreau, to name but a few.

Airy expansions to the building in 2006, designed by architect Renzo Piano, added 75,000 light filled square feet to the building, and included the addition of a performance hall, reading room, shop and collections space.  If you’re not planning on visiting the library for research, pop by the Dining Room for one of the best museum lunches in the city.  The Dining Room can be visited without paying the entrance fee. I f you’d like something a little more opulent, visit the Morgan Café.

The current exhibition at the Morgan Museum is titles Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, Landscape and Design.  90 influential texts and works of art are featured in the exhibition, exploring the beauty of gardens as celebrated by the Romantics.

The Greenwich Hotel, located in Tribeca, also has an opulence that takes you far away from the city.  The Greenwich is surrounded by chic eateries and boutiques, but inside you’ll experience nothing but inviting luxury.

For opening times, location, and a fascinating history of the Morgan Library & Museum, visit their website. www.themorgan.org

Images Courtesy of The Morgan:

View of new Madison Avenue entrance, April 2006

Photography by Michel Denancé.

View from inside glass-enclosed central court, looking east, April 2006

Photography by Michel Denancé.

View of Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery, April 2006

Photography by Michel Denancé.

Madison Avenue side of model with new entrance

© 2002 Renzo Piano Building Workshop and The Morgan Library.

Photography by Todd Eberle. © 2002 Todd Eberle.

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Categories: New York, Culture

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter

Reasons to Smile

How do you bring together a story about a hot destination, Skiathos, the Special Olympics, a woman called Vicky and a host of hollywood celebs…..

We all get a little too busy and stressed at times, all full of our own self importance and we can, sometimes, forget what life is really all about.  It was such a moment for us – busy with new hotels, partners and the general direction of our relatively teenage company, when Iain met with a remarkable woman doing something for a remarkable, and at times, very close to home, cause.

Her name is Vicky Santikos, an extremely polished Greek business woman and the owner of our Aegean Suites in Skiathos who amongst many things has dedicated her time and commitment to supporting the The Special Olympics – this is that very human factor that we all should embrace. Through the work of Vicky the tiny island of Skiathos, has officially become a “host-town”, joining forces with the committee of the Special Olympics World Summer Games Athens 2011. Great Britain’s athletes – who will be competing in next years World Summer Games – will be honourably welcomed onto the Greek island.

The Special Olympics is moving and uplifting but most of all, it showcases an outstanding range of skill and talent by true athletes from all over the world. Challenging tired stereotypes and a genuine barrier smashing. We’re proud to be a part of it.

Actors, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, are backing Joanna Despotopoulou – President of the SO World Summer Games Athens 2011 and Vicky Santikos – president of “Host-Town” Skiathos Special Olympics Athens 2011 and owner of the Aegean Suites Hotel. Russell, Hawn and Vicky Santikos have been awarded at the SO 2010 ceremony for their continued support to the global movement.

Our partners, the Aegean Suites Hotel (and their sister properties), have generously offered free accommodation and meals for the athletes and are also hard at work organising charity events for the cause which White Line Hotels will be lending a helping hand to.

Skiathos has never been out of fashion and has been attracting the rich and famous to its notoriously beautiful beaches since the swinging sixties. The Aegean Suites, it’s sister hotels and the island itself have strong relations with celebrities and soon to be International atheletes. The Greek paradise is the backdrop for box office success Mamma Mia. Past guests at the hotels included Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Cristine Baranski, Julie Walters, Amanda Seyfried and Stellan Skarsgard and retro-style Scandinavian icons ABBA.

White Line Hotels will be working alongside the Aegean Suites Hotel and Vicky Santikos to promote their work for the Special Olympics as our designated Corporate, Social Responsibility programme.  More details of our involvement will be announced in the coming months.

What are you doing ? Tell us.

Korcula. Step Lightly

When I was young, my best friend’s mother used to have her perform Scottish sword dancing at all the school talent shows.  She would nimbly hop around the swords laid on the stage as the screech of bagpipes crackled through the auditorium loudspeakers.  While graceful, it was a bit lost on the young audience and always met with more than a snicker or two.

The Moreška Sword Dance Festival on the Croatian island of Korčula is nothing like what my poor friend was put through as a child. Moreška is a choreographed drama, stemming out of traditions in the 12th and 13th century.  Although there is quite a bit of play-acting, these are actual men, with very real swords, clashing in a series of 7 dances. Read the rest of this entry »

Wörthersee Grandslam

On the 27th of July the A-1 Beach Volleyball Grandslam will commence, if you like to be where the party is, there really is no better time to be at Wörthersee.  For six days Klagenfurt will host over 100,000 volleyball fans, there to watch the world’s best volleyball players face off.  Over 80 international teams are on the roster, and although seats have been filled for months, you’ll be able to join the players, and celebrities, off the court in the region’s biggest party week.

Spend quiet days dipping in the lake, before joining the party, just a few kilometres away White Line’s Aenea Hotel. You’ll have the luxury of escape, while being in the centre of it all.

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Categories: Worthersee, Events

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter

Michael Riedel: The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

Kunstverein Hamburg

Artist Michael Riedel has a reputation for replicas, recreations, and facsimiles. From when he first drew international attention for his work in cooperation with Dennis Loesch at Oskar-von-Miller Strasse in Frankfurt, where the two duplicated artworks on view in local institutions, text, images, and even architectural components have all been fair game in the building of Riedel’s language of appropriation.

For an artist known for appropriation, even references to his own previous works can take on the meaning of a facsimile. In his exhibition The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog (the title itself an appropriation of a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet and used to display typefaces), Riedel references his installation at the 2007 Lyon Biennale in which he “doubled” the entrance to Rirkrit Tiravanija’s video program by modifying the entrance to the exhibition with a further entrance. Within this created “space within a space” Riedel presents 10 new works that take their references from the “non-space” of the internet, using material from both a website that features one of his works in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art New York and one that lists art highlights in the next 30 days. Should one still feel as if some element of appropriation were missing from the exhibition, the works produced mirror the forms of constructivism.

In addition to other works on display at the Kunstverein, Riedel’s Filmed Film Trailer, in which around 90 hours of filmed screenings of films are condensed to around 7 minutes, will be shown before all regular screenings at Metropolis Kino (Steindamm 54, 20099 Hamburg) for the duration of the exhibition.

July 10 – August 8, 2010 at Hamburg Kunstverein, Klosterwall 23, 20095 Hamburg

Get your freak on at East Hotel, it’s not a copy of anything.

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Categories: Hamburg, Art

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost