Round Museum

Sure, sure, the holidays just rush right up on you. It was only yesterday you were at the beach, and now gifts must be wrapped and the parties must be arranged and this festive swirl of flowers must give way to an evergreen Round.

12.18.18
WREATH WEEK

Walk a street or sidewalk and you will quickly trip over Rounds of all types - manholes, vents, pipe covers. This gas pipe cover is in need of some work, planted in the middle of crumbling concrete in a construction site. Spray painted bright yellow you can't miss it. The color identifies it as a dangerous material line, and is one of eight different uniform color codes set by the American National Standards Institute for marking and protecting underground lines during excavations and construction.

12.17.18

The halftime show has begun! Marching across this white field in intricate concentric and interwoven floral formations is a band of little Round dots. Looking closely, this quilted pattern is embossed in the surface of a napkin.

12.14.18

Within the geodesic sphere of the Montréal Biosphère are other spherical structures. The Biosphere was built for the World Expo 1967 and designed by Buckminster Fuller.

12.12.18

The tent roof at the Saddle Ranch Chop House in Hollywood at Universal Studios is perhaps the most benign of the restaurant's features. Enjoy a drink and dine beneath the round ceiling, wander through the Western saloon style ambiance, or take a spin on a mechanical bull. Your choice.

12.11.18

When William Harley and Arthur Davidson designed a small engine for their bicycle in 1901, they may not have imagined where their creation would take them. It didn't power them up the hills around Milwaukee. Though their first prototype failed, they stuck with it and soon had patented a single pin cranskshaft with a 45° angle between the cylinders. The classic choppy Harley sound had been born. By 1920, a group of farm boys were winning races on Harleys and to celebrate would take their live pig mascot for victory lap rides.

There's a fine line between a collection of tastefully distressed artifacts and a hillbilly front yard. Your nautical-themed restaurant, store or museum will not really be complete without a few buoys, wheels and rusty anchors out front. Now get off my property!

12.06.18

This elevator button actually poses a little semantic conundrum. As opposed to having "Call For Help" to press when the car gets stuck between the 26th and 27th floors, is one expected to wait in suspense, in the dark, using up all the oxygen until this one lights up? Don't worry!

12.05.18

"Between 1934 and 1936, pioneer industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague designed a series of radios for the Sparton Corporation. Teague's creations departed from the conventional wooden-cabinet radios that resembled historicized case furniture. this radio's circular, blue-mirrored-glass face and linear chrome decoration celebrate pure geometry, perfect for a modernist interior."

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum
New York, NY

12.03.18

This polished steel work of art is a veritable thesis of Round forms. Soldered together with hundreds of ball berrings, the "Orbital Reflector" platter is the work of designer Andrew Pick and displayed on a concentric holder at the Rhode Island School of Design's Museum of Art.

RISD Museum
Providence, Rhode Island

12.02.18