Opus – Page 161 – Encyclopædia of the sublime

John Stephen

In 1956, John Stephen took a lease on 5 Carnaby Street in the epicenter of London, a city on the cusp of a cultural and social revolution that would last for a decade. Before long, John Stephen was a cult name in fashion, revolutionizing the design of men's shops and establishing the prototypical boutique aesthetic that was to be copied by an entire generation of fashion retailers. John Stephen set up in clothes at the right time in the right place for a generation waiting to intersect with his liberally colorful designs.

Glenn O’Brien

Glenn O'Brien was a fixture of the New York downtown scene for many decades.

Take Ivy

Take Ivy, originally published in Japan in 1965, set off an explosion of American Ivy style fashion amongst the students of the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo. Take Ivy has been the Ivy League Bible for the Japanese baby boomers, who were very much into the whole Ivy League look, having been a very rare find in the West, garnering auction prices as high as $2000. Take Ivy was authored by four Japanese sartorial style enthusiasts and is a collection of candid photographs shot on the campuses of America’s elite Ivy League universities.

Peau d’Espagne

In the 16th century, tanners used to scent chamois with essences of flowers, herbs and fruits and as a final step smear it with civet and musk. It is said by some, probably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin.

M. F. K. Fisher

M. F. K. Fisher's books deal primarily with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and philosophy. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the arts of life and explored the art of living as a secondary theme in her writing.

Physics for Entertainment

Published in 1913, a best-seller in the 1930s and long out of print, Physics for Entertainment was translated from Russian into many languages and influenced science students around the world. Among them was Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman, the Russian mathematician (unrelated to the author), who solved the Poincaré conjecture, and who was awarded and rejected the Fields Medal. Grigori's father, an electrical engineer, gave him Physics for Entertainment to encourage his son's interest in mathematics. In the foreword, the book’s author describes the contents as “conundrums, brain-teasers, entertaining anecdotes, and unexpected comparisons,” adding, “I have quoted extensively from Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mark Twain and other writers, because, besides providing entertainment, the fantastic experiments these writers describe may well serve as instructive illustrations at physics classes.” The book’s topics included how to jump from a moving car, and why, “according to the law of buoyancy, we would never drown in the Dead Sea.”

The Moscow Puzzles

This book has been a classic in the former Soviet Union since it was first published in 1956, and it remains just as entertaining today. A master at making math fun for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical tricks, and more.

Minar-e-Pakistan

Minar-e-Pakistan is a tall minaret in Iqbal Park Lahore, built in commemoration of the Pakistan Resolution. The minaret reflects a blend of Mughal and modern architecture, and is constructed on the site where on March 23, 1940, seven years before the formation of Pakistan, the Muslim League passed the Pakistan Resolution.

Miller House

The Miller House was designed by Eero Saarinen in 1957 and is an important residential representation of the International Style. Of equal significance, the landscape of the Miller House, designed by famed landscape architect Dan Kiley, was one of the first and most important Modern designs in residential landscape architecture.

Luis Barragán

Luis Barragán is considered the most important Mexican architect of the 20th century. A unique feature, as can be seen in many of his residential interiors and fountain features, is the typical tall coloured walls, which he borrowed and modified from traditional Mexican buildings. He situated many of his designs amidst natural backdrops, such as lava rock outcrops and groves of trees.