Details Make the Difference - No. 1
Details matter. If this is true everywhere in your home, it is perhaps especially true in the kitchen and bath, where you have an opportunity to interact daily with architectural details you not only see but also touch and feel. The master bath in a 1960s rambler we recently remodeled provides an excellent case in point. The fixtures and finishes in the bath are the masterwork of Nils Finne, Principal, FNNE Architects, who designed each element and conceived of the overall effect, and of the many craftsmen who fashioned the various parts and components.
Finne's custom fabrications of furniture, lighting, fittings, and hardware bring the architectural intent of the entire building down to the tactile and immediate. “We explore the close touch of a hand as it might grip burnished metal or brush across a surface of textured wood,” says Finne. For Finne, the fabrications are an extension of the idea of crafted modernism, the notion that modernism must embody the enduring value of craftsmanship in order to acquire lasting value and meaning.
The bathroom was intended to feel like an outdoor space, returning the idea of bath to its natural origins!
A very thin and light steel mirror frame has been suspended in front of a continuous set of windows, creating an intriguing set of reflections of inside and outside.
The twisted steel towel bars are a FINNE signature element.
The custom cherry cabinet panels were created with sophisticated computer-driven routers. The resulting pattern can be seen as “woven wood.”
The laser-cut steel tub frame explores the use of a very delicate, nature-inspired pattern with a pure industrial material. The same pattern occurs in the shade valences.
Photos: Benjamin Benschneider