Round Museum

Ultraviolet orange marks the way. For beams of light throughout the day. Lines for alarm and signals switch. Colors to your eye and video twitch. A solar system on your TV screens. Through the night on optic beams. This is telecommunication.

02.15.19

The available Valentine's gift options run the gamut from sentimental to sweet to smelly. A dozen roses with a handwritten love note will never let you down. Maybe dark chocolates in a heart-shaped box is your thing. There's always the elusive, ever-changing floral fragrance in this Round full of pink toilet water.

02.14.19

A Round is simple and complex. An amorphous reflection on a chrome stool is an unexpected output from a seemingly simple equation: light + round.

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum
New York, NY

02.11.19

It's about time for Sunday brunch, so take a stroll over to Jerry's Bar in Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia. Originally an old-time shot-and-beer bar in a corner rowhome, Jerry's was transformed into a hip gastropub in 2013 with white subway tiles, exposed brick, a 3-inch marble bar top, and repurposed light fixtures, fans, objects and furnishings. Order up a Bloody Jerry to go with your platter of salmon and grits.

02.10.19

Watch your step.

02.09.19

Keeping watch at the back gate is the brave and noble king of the beasts. A symbol of strength, ferocity, protection and power throughout cultural histories, lions have guarded the doors of Roman military leaders, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and appeared on shields, flags and architecture across Europe and Asia. Knock, knock?

02.08.19

One of the shapes of war, this 53-lb star torpedo reminds us of other round weaponry: the barrel of a cannon or a gun, land mines, the nose of a plane scouting the skies.

Brunswick Town Historic Site
North Carolina

02.07.19

Bobbling around in the breeze, the balloons at the corner store are begging for your attention. They are needy. These colorful, spherical bubbles of helium are saying: Hey, HEY! Stop! Come inside! Shop! Stay awhile! Please? I'll be your best friend! No no no don't walk away!!

02.06.19

Here's a 34,000-gallon cylinder of flammable liquid waiting to be hauled somewhere. The tank car has been a standard means for the railroads to transport chemicals, ethanol, oil and food-based products since the 1860s, not too long after oil was discovered near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The huge tank allowed for transportation of much more volume than vertical tanks or barrels did.

02.03.19

If you were sitting by the speaker of this Atwater Kent Model 41 radio in the late 1920s, maybe you were listening to The Grand Ole Opry broadcast from Nashville, or news about the Great Depression and how President Hoover was dealing with it, and yes, the Atwater Kent Radio Hour with classical and opera music performances. At the time, the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia was the largest maker of radios in the U.S., with over 12,000 workers making millions of models.

02.01.19