Charlotte Gainsbourg: Fine, Fashionable & French.

If you don't know who Charlotte Gainsbourg is by now, it's time you did. Good thing you found your way here.

Getting raves for her recent performance in I'm Not There, with an album (5:55) on many of best of 2007 lists and having already garnered a Cesar Award (the french equivalent to an Oscar), it's time you met this talented beauty.


Above: On the set of "I'm Not There" with director Todd Haynes.

Who is Charlotte Gainsbourg?
Charlotte Gainsbourg (born July 21, 1971) is a French actress and singer. She was born in London, United Kingdom and raised in Paris, France. Her father is Serge Gainsbourg, and her mother is Jane Birkin. She made her motion picture début playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the 1984 film Paroles et musique. In 1986, she won a César Award for "Most Promising Actress" for L'effrontée, and in 2000 she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the film La Bûche. In 1994, she made her stage debut in David Mamet's Oleanna at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. Gainsbourg has sung the title song in three of her films and has released two albums. In 2004, she sang a duet with French pop star Étienne Daho on his single "If". She is married to the French actor and director Yvan Attal, and they have two children, Ben and Alice.

The video below was created during a photo shoot by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Paris. Charlotte Gainsbourg wears items from Balenciaga’s Fall Winter 2006 collection, styled by Marie-Amélie Sauvé.



The music is the instrumental version of "The songs that we sing", taken from the latest album "5:55" by Charlotte Gainsbourg.

The album team includes Jean-Benoît Dunkel and Nicolas Godin, the two composers of Air; Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of Pulp; and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck) as producer.

The album 5:55 was released in April of last year in the US and was one of Amazon's top picks for 2007.




Play the song with lyrics here.

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Buy the album here.

Best New Private Homes:the Shortlist For Wallpaper's Design Awards

Below are the 5 private residences that made the Wallpaper shortlist for Best Home Design. The additional pics seen here are not available on the Wallpaper site.

1. The Bourellec Brothers Floating House:

This experimental floating house (a studio for resident artists and authors invited by French art centre Cneai) proves the genre-swapping Bouroullecs are up for larger-scale architectural work. A collaboration with architects Jean-Marie Finot and Denis Daversin, the playful aluminium and wood structure, moored off an island in the Seine, can be reproduced to different scales.
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2. Ring House, Karuizawa, japan by TNA:

When architects Makoto Takei and Chie Nabeshima (TNA) were asked to design a weekend house 185 miles from Tokyo, they came up with an ethereal, glass and wood mini-tower. Standing three storeys tall amid thick vegetation, it offers uninterrupted 360-degree views, its transparent skin flooded with light during the day and glowing at night when lit from within.
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3. St. Andrews Beach House, Australia by Sean Godsell:

On Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, this retreat is right on the seashore. An outer skin of oxidised steel grating acts a brise-soleil, while the simple design incorporates an unusual feature requested by the client, who wanted to be in constant dialogue with the outdoors: the interior spaces are linked by an exterior veranda, so to move between them, one must exit the house.
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4. Villa Chabrey, Chabrey, Switzerland by Geninasca Delefortrie:

This low-lying, expansive house in Chabrey encompasses two bedrooms, a garage and an indoor pool in a single volume. Reminiscent of an agricultural building or a hangar, its material simplicity allows it to blend into the rural landscape. The external walls and roof are clad in thin slats of wood, and the roof oversails the walls to create a covered walkway.
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5. Villa NM, New York State, US by UN Studio:

These days, UN Studio is better known for its galleries than its houses, but this new Villa harks back to an earlier European project: Mobius House. Set on a sloping site in upstate New York, the house is an extruded box, with two protruding levels forming the upstairs bedrooms. Curved surfaces create cave-like spaces that break open into expansive walls of glass.
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More to come.

Wallpaper's Short List For Best Public Buildings

The Wallpaper Design Award Nominees Countdown Continues...

The Shortlist for Best Public Buildings are shown below with images not found on the wallpaper site. Winners will be announced soon, and of course, you'll hear about them right here.

First, the 5 nominees for Best Public Building Are:

1.Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, Germany:

Peter Zumthor's most recent work proves his ability with different construction methods and traditional craftsmanship. This simple chapel, in Mechernich, southern Germany, is created from layer upon layer of concrete, poured in stages by a team of local farmers over a timber, teepee-shaped frame, which was then burned out to create the final interior, its soot-darkened walls leading up to a skylight.

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2. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, US by Steven Holl Architects:

Comprising five linked pavilions, the Bloch Building, an extension to Kansas City's NAMA, combines Holl's love of the sculpted form with his understanding of working in the public realm. Detailing inside and out is kept to a minimum and the building comes into its own at twilight, when the translucent walls glow from within to create a new beacon for the arts.

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Roland Halbe/Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Above: The exterior of the new Bloch Building Lobby Lens at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. The New York architect Steven Holl designed the Bloch addition and renovated the museum for $200 million. The museum opened on June 9, 2007.
Here's a link to a blog about the design and status of the Bloch Building.

3. New Museum, US by SANAA:

The New Museum is New York's only museum devoted entirely to contemporary art and it owes its cutting-edge new home in the Bowery district to Tokyo-based architects SANAA. The seven-storey building was conceived as a composition of metal mesh-clad boxes, which softly shift off the main axis, creating a dynamic effect as the building rises.

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above: An open stairway, running 50 feet upward along the building’s north side, connects the third and fourth floors.
See more here.

4. Scenic Arts Centre, Spain by MGM:

Jose Morales, Sara de Gilles and Juan Gonzalez Mariscal's new Níjar theatre is a series of grey aluminium mesh-swathed boxes with contrastingly boldly coloured interiors, glimpsed through the few large windows. Set in the arid Andalusian landscape, the simple rectangular plan contains an auditorium, rehearsal studios and gallery space, and extends below ground.

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See images of the design and drawings here.

5. Tama Art University Library, Japan by Toyo Ito:

Ito's new library building in Hachioji City, Tokyo, comes across as a mix of hi-tech transparency and late Louis Kahn, its tiered façade of concrete arches set flush with expanses of glass. The interior spaces are a forest of fanned concrete pillars, showing Ito's delight in exposed structure, and feature curved banks of shelving designed by Kazuko Fujie.

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See a wonderful post on Dezeen about the Library here.