Susi Johnston Bali Blog

Tribal art dealer, Mark Johnson has just added an unusual bronze grip to his website. He indicates it was excavated in Java and is approximately 2,000 years old, dating from the Indonesian bronze age, often referred to at the Dong Son period. I have never seen a similar piece from Indonesia, or anywhere else for that matter, yet find its form rather striking in its simplicity. It reminds me of something, but of nothing ancient I have ever seen from Southeast Asia. The protruding “buttons” seem vaguely (but not entirely) reminiscent of the appended balls on ancient bronze bracelets from Alor and Pantar Islands. Or perhaps reminiscent of certain types of African bronzes? I have sent a link to my good friend Ambra Calo, who is an archaeologist specialising in Southeast Asian bronze age artefacts. If her response is interesting, of course I’ll post it here.

(Postscript: Ambra says it looks “strange,” meaning it seems more likely to be an invention than a discovery. If it were an invention, then an invention inspired by what? Pure whimsy? If it is a discovery, then what kind of a discovery is it? I can’t shake the whiff of Africa myself . . . )

I have always been a big fan of small containers. They imply the concealment and protection of something precious, something treasured – - or treacherous. The tribal cultures of Southeast Asia have produced some of the most beautiful and enigmatic small containers ever. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Tribal art dealer, Mark Johnson has put up a fascinating little online exhibition this month of small containers. 

Of course, good things come in small packages. But small packages can be very good things in their own right, as well. So if you can’t quite scrape up the cash to give diamonds in a small package, just give a small container instead. Some, like Mark Johnson’s, are treasures themselves, regardless of their contents or lack thereof. Take the three ceremonial feasting bowls above, for example.

Have you got an eye for textiles? Test your textile memory with the Maharam Memory Game, a beautiful, enjoyable and relevant freebie on Maharam’s marvelous website. The game involves remembering the location of textile swatches and pairing them up on screen. Be warned: it’s compulsive.

Maharam is a fourth-generation family run textile business based in New York, with a star line-up of collaborators (including Hella Jongerius, Andrée Putman and Paul Smith), and collections by some of the 20th century’s leading designers (like Gio Ponti, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffman, and Charles & Ray Eames). 

Maharam’s website is an Aladdin’s cave of gorgeous cloth (like “Massive Paisley”, above), and an absolute delight to use, underlining the company’s long-standing emphasis on service. And, of course, on design. They even grew their own graphic design team called Studio A4, which is evidently bursting with talent. 

Been looking for alternatives to hard-edged modern-minimalist rectilinearity? Alternatives suited to a non-urban, natural island lifestyle? Here’s one – - furniture, lighting and accessories by Bleu Nature. This is rustic primitive minimalism without apology. Driftwood and hairballs against icy white set the tone of their new 2008-2009 collection. It’s beachy and arctic at the same time.

Bleu Nature’s site is nice, too. Its “about” page is utterly enchanting. First off, it’s not called “about”, it’s called “a nice story.” And nice it is. Founder Franck LeFebvre’s portrait reveals a jovial, robust and relaxed character who is patently French. The very same character flavours Bleu Nature’s collections.

“In our studio we build, nail, adjust, fasten and balance our pieces,” LeFebvre states. “All Bleu Nature creations are born of an encounter between the technical mastery of a French craftsman and the prolonged work of nature.”

That’s a theme I can subscribe to. What would a Barcelona Chair look like if it had been washed up on a beach for fifty years? Interesting.

Searching for simple outdoor furniture to work with a modern tropical house. It’s harder than you might think. Most wood collections are too heavy, and conflict with existing woodwork in the house. Most collections made of modern materials look more like weapons than furniture. I can feel their sharp metal points and abrasive surfaces digging into my skin just by looking at them. And synthetic rattan is just too Target for an exclusive project. Done to death, and mostly done badly.

Finalmente! Found a collection that screams, “lounge on me, now and never leave!” And it won’t argue with the minimalist aesthetic of the house, nor does it demand either bandaids or bodybuilders when you move the pieces around (which one must do in order to create comfort in a variety of situations day and night).

It is Paula Lenti’s Landscape collection, a lush yet simple group of pieces that represent soft-tech at its best. The materials are technologically advanced, but their lounge-ability is earthy, exotic and inviting. 

Let’s go play outside in Paola Lenti’s lush landscape. It’s a perfect landscape for Bali.

Found this firm by chance, having stumbled on a credit in a book on modern garden design. Munkenbeck’s bio goes like this: Dartmouth Harvard Foster Associates James Stirling, and he’s worked for a wealth of aristrocrats, including designing four palaces for Saudi royals.

The stunning visitors centre for the Earl of Bute’s family seat on a far isle in Scotland (above), certainly caught my eye when I visited M+M’s blissfully clean and crisp website. It shall serve as inspiration for our second house project in Bali.

Many more equally inspirational works on the M+M site, with obvious strengths being artspaces and multiunit residential projects, including fascinating rehabs of problematic places.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Apologies to readers of my blog for the past two weeks’ outpouring on (over)development in Bali. I started out hoping to get a general overview of the state of real estate development on the island, and one thing led to another and to another and to another.

It is not easy to get a clear picture of what is being built on this island, because there are no reliable central sources of information, not even government sources. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing, and many developments are taking place in semi-secrecy. So I began searching sites of property agents, developers, planners, engineers, architects, contractors, landscapers and suppliers to try to find out what really is going on here. And I did find out.

The pace of villa, apartment and hotel development in Bali is astounding, appalling, and alarming. It is almost impossible to quantify, and clearly quite impossible to control. It seems that this is a truth which developers large and small do not want to be known. Why? Because if the media, the general public, and the authorities had any idea what a tsunami of buildings is about to flood Bali, somebody might do something to try to stop it. 

So I used non-orthodox means to ferret out information on as many projects as I could. For example, many well-known developments provide lists of the members of their project team. Using these I would then visit the websites of the projects’ engineers, quantity surveyors, landscapers, architects, contractors, subcontractors, and so forth. Those businesses, on their websites, often list projects “on the boards.” Many show masterplans, renderings and other information about those projects, which the developers haven’t yet made public.

Each site I would visit, whether a real estate agent, contractor, or what have you . . . would lead to the discovery of several more developments, planned or under way. And each of those, in turn, would lead directly or indirectly to several more. During the past two weeks I have felt like Alice down the rabbit hole. Utterly bewildered, having tumbled into a world of wonders, horrors and absurdities that defy all logic. That is the state of development in Bali now.

I posted 55 new blog posts about developments large and small, responsible and reckless, in remote and urbanised areas, with designs ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. And I have several hundred files in my computer with masterplans and renderings of hundreds and hundreds of other developments. My head is spinning, and there are still thousands of tunnels in the rabbit hole to explore. The number of developments in Bali is vast, and impossible to count, in just the same way it is impossible to count the number of participants in a riot. 

One of the reasons that no one can get a handle on just how much development is going on is because the players are so diverse. There are Korean, Japanese, American, Chinese, Taiwanese, Italian, French, Dutch, British, Australian, German, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, Russian and Canadian developers building here. Not to mention the Indonesians, of which there are many, representing mainly very large, and very small projects. And Dubai is playing a significant role in development as well, both here in Bali, and more importantly, on the neighbouring island of Lombok.

Few of these diverse players are talking to each other, and the various authorities who are supposed to oversee and manage development here don’t talk to each other either. Every galaxy in the development universe seems to be trapped in its own gravitational field, to the extent that nobody has any idea what the whole universe is like, how big it is . . . and whether there is any intelligent life out there . . . in the Bali development universe.

My extended metaphor is not an arbitrary one. After weeks of investigating, I feel like I’m channelling Carl Sagan . . . of late, I am often seen standing stock still with a fixed expression of total awe on my face, chanting, “Billions and billions . . . ”  My partner Bruno is seriously considering which psychiatric hospital to send me to for evalutaion and treatment.

The Bali development universe is vast and mysterious. On the timeline of this universe, I’m afraid, we stand just a few nanoseconds after the Big Bang.  The expansion is fast, the heat is intense, and the outcome is entirely uncertain.

I feel like I did when I was a small child sleeping outdoors in summer, staring up at the stars. I am getting a feeling that things out there are bigger, vaster, colder and stranger than any human could ever grasp. There’s the same enormous hollow feeling in my stomach, and the sense of vertigo, like I might fall off the earth and disappear into space.

Whither Bali? Wither Bali? One feels inclined to actually welcome an economic crisis – - something to slow down the spinning of the galaxies of the Bali development universe – - at least slow it down enough to stop the spinning feeling in my head. Please. 

WE NOW RESUME OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING

. . . art, architecture, interiors, design, and textiles. Beautiful things. Not horrifying ones.

I’m often saddened when proudly showing friends around Bali, to be asked, “Why are the buildings in Bali so ugly?” Living here for so long, one tends to become numb to the pain of countenancing constant architectural eyesores. When I’m hit with the “ugly buildings” question, therefore, I have a difficult time coming up with a suitable answer for my guests. I’m not sure I know the answer. It’s an excellent question, in fact.

Isn’t this the Island of the Gods, after all? The Last Paradise? The fabled isle where everyone is an artist? So why all the ugliness, then?

Read more…

It’s seven big houses on the shore, several with wild multi-level pools. With so much development out on the east coast, I expect they will need a fancy supermarket-deli soon. And maybe a branch of Ace Hardware?

Dubai hotel group Jumeirah will be creating 188 five-star-diamond hotel rooms in eight four-storey blocks, plus sixteen penhouses and thirty pool villas, on a 12.7 hectare site in the Nusa Dua area, with an estimated investment of $43.5 million. With Jumeirah, at least we know they won’t be cutting any corners.