Beth_SDSA's Profile

My friend Rosemary Brandenburg emailed me this recently from her Legends of La Cienega window vignette she designed (and discusses the wood courthouse chair):

My "Public Enemies" Window at Szalon

Szalon, at 910 No. La Cienega Boulevard

A fabulous shop specializing in Hungarian and Eastern European designs in the Vienna Secession, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Bauhaus styles.

My starting point to evoke the mood of 1930’s Chicago, where the bravado of John Dillinger and his band of outlaws swept through banks in the Midwest with explosive violence in their short but meteoric lives -- is a simple wooden office chair, circa 1902.

The chair – like so many people struggling during the Great Depression – seems solid and mundane. In fact, it was designed by Adolf Loos, the famous Austro-Hungarian architect and furniture designer. He spent several years in the United States and was impressed by The Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. His chair, with its undulating curves, shows the influence of turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau style. By 1930, an Americanized version of this chair -- stiffened up considerably -- was standard office-fare throughout the United States.

Rosemary Brandenburg SDSA

Two soon to be released films -- “The Rum Diary” starring Johnny Depp (1960’s Puerto Rico) and “Unstoppable”, Tony Scott’s latest action film, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine -- feature my work.

Past credits include: “Hancock”; “Déjà Vu”; “The Island”; “The Haunted Mansion”, “The Ring”; “Planet of the Apes”; “What Women Want”; “Amistad”; “Casper”; “The Flintstones”; and “Hocus Pocus”.

(For more on that event she is talking about- if you are interested) go to the setdecorators.org website and click on "Hot off the Set"
http://www.setdecorators.org/incEngine/?art=hotofftheset

Thanks for the plug on our Set Decorators Society of America (SDSA) "Set Decor" magazine! Regarding finding the shopping resources, we strive to reveal in the articles the research and the logic behind what the set decorator decided for the characters in the TV show or film. Unfortunately, to list the hundreds of items in one set, that he/she rented from a prop house or purchased would take up valuable page space. However, having said that, do not be discouraged (!) -if you email us, we will certainly do our best to forward your specific "decor" question to the SDSA Decorator member to get a reply.

Our email address is: sdsa (at) setdecorators (dot) org

Thanks for sharing us with your readers!