Joan Weinstein, Chicago, 1985 Private collection, Chicago Wright, Chicago, "Modernist 20th Century," June 6, 2004, lot 203
Literature
Krueck Sexton: Architects, New York, 1997, illustrated pp. 96-97
Catalogue Essay
As the founder of Ultimo, an influential Chicago fashion boutique, Joan Weinstein was known for her exacting sense of style, which she brought not only to the curation of her shop but also to the re-design of her Stanford White residence on the Gold Coast, an historic neighborhood in Chicago’s Near North Side. In 1985 Weinstein commissioned architects Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton to reconcile the classicism of White’s architecture with her own desire for a minimalist, “spartan” interior.
Krueck+Sexton Architects gained prominence in 1981 with their first project, ‘A Steel and Glass House’, the first and only private residence to grace the cover of Progressive Architecture. In subsequent years, they firm honed its ability to sensitively restore and adapt earlier architectural works while remaining at the forefront of innovative contemporary design. Krueck + Sexton often employed glass as the medium of choice to bridge this divide: “We look at material as an artist might look at paint; it’s what we use to express our projects.”
In describing their intention to restore Weinstein’s residence to its original grand proportions, the architects realized a fundamental goal: to harmonize the relationship between the container and the contained. In their telling, their use of curves throughout the interior of White’s 1891 structure was a counterpoint to the rigidity of its period architecture, much in the spirit of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. The serpentine, resolutely contemporary form of the present table, designed specifically for Weinstein, is tempered by the use of solemn materials often associated with both classicist and modernist interiors.