Not your everyday Yurt!

(click any image to enlarge)

"A yurt?", you ask? Well, I did, at least. Yurts are round structures built with a wooden frame and a felt cover in Central Asia. In the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, part of their "Fashioning Felt" exhibit is a contemporary interpretation of a yurt by the studio of JA Felt (Centralia, WA) that is stunning. The photo above is the main room, and below is the roof of the structure.The roof is a beautiful composition of felted diamond shapes felted onto silk organza. By felting the wool with the organza, JA Felt created a light-filled space of pattern, texture, and ...wow!
And the longer I stood looking, the more details I noticed like the "gems" they applied to the felt that was at the top of the 'wall' (left) and lettering they added onto the felt (right).

If you are interested in how they made the elements in this beautiful structure, here is the link to the Cooper-Hewitt You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qv23mvOfcE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblog%2Ecooperhewitt%2Eorg%2Fcategory%2FFashioning%2DFelt%2F&feature=player_embedded
It was really a fabulous exhibit with so many different felted materials that had distinctly different characteristics and uses. It was incredibly inspiring and, though I am certain I won't be making a yurt anytime soon, I might be trying my hand at some of the techniques on a tad smaller scale :).