Word: messel
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...fossil is so perfectly preserved because Ida probably died quickly and nonviolently; her resting place was an abandoned quarry called the Messel Pit, near Frankfurt. At the time she lived, the pit was a lake out of which poisonous volcanic gases probably belched from time to time. Likely felled by such an outburst, she tumbled into deep, oxygen-poor water where she would have been buried by sediments before she could decompose. Indeed, the Messel Pit is such a rich source of well-preserved fossils that it's been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Read about China's fossil...
Theater set design is by nature ephemeral, rarely exerting an influence beyond the end of a show's run. Not so the fabled British designer Oliver Messel's scheme for the Royal Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty, first staged in London in 1946. When it opened in New York City in 1949, wrote the legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn, "Applause greeted the set before anyone danced a step." (Though five other designers of The Sleeping Beauty have been subsequently commissioned, Messel's was a fairy-tale setting the Royal reckoned had never been bettered: to mark its 75th anniversary, the company...
...pivotal role in the emergence of conceptual art In the audience at the original London show, the British construction magnate Robert McAlpine was so enchanted by the stage set that he decided he wanted a bit of Sleeping Beauty's magic for his own domain. So he commissioned Messel to design a suite, a penthouse, a pavilion and a roof terrace with fountain for his luxury London hotel the Dorchester. The result, which opened in 1953 and has been restored but never altered, is truly fit for a princess...
...evoke the tangled briars that grew up around Sleeping Beauty's castle. There are lamp fittings shaped like birdcages, twig-like door handles on which perch golden birds, a tented ceiling, painted silk walls and an abundance of cherubs and shells, as well as a number of watercolors by Messel, two of them designs for The Sleeping Beauty. It's all utterly romantic and theatrical, if a little over the top?No?l Coward commented on its "somewhat excessive luxe," but found it "terribly exotic." And no end of actors, from Marlene Dietrich to Elizabeth Taylor to Tom Cruise, have stayed...
...audience at the original London show, the British construction magnate Robert McAlpine was so enchanted by the stage set that he decided he wanted a bit of Sleeping Beauty's magic for his own domain. So he commissioned Messel to design a suite, a penthouse, a pavilion and a roof terrace with fountain for his luxury London hotel the Dorchester. The result, which opened in 1953 and has been restored but never altered, is truly fit for a princess. The entire scheme is an essay in riotous cod rococo: swagged chintz, contorted gilt (even the bathroom fittings are gold-plated...