AROUND HOME : Market Umbrellas
FROM THE FRESH-FISH counter at your local supermarket to Citrus, the fashionable Melrose restaurant, oversize, four-sided, pyramidal market umbrellas have become a familiar furnishings item. Indeed, pyramidal umbrellas have become so identified with the Golden State that elsewhere in North America they are referred to as California umbrellas.
Terminology notwithstanding, the product comes in many versions, including a $4,500, 13-foot-square behemoth made of teak with leather and solid brass fittings, which manufacturer Santa Barbara Designs claims “is the largest obtainable.” (To cope with the immense wind stresses that build up under an umbrella that big, central vent panels, fastened by tabs to each spoke, can pop up as high as 6 inches.)
However, Los Angeles designer Gere Kavanaugh was probably the first to produce an upscale, “name” version of the generic market umbrella; her designs have been produced by Terra for 20 years. Kavanaugh heads a multifaceted design firm with credits that include lighting for lighting designer Ron Rezek; chairs and tables for Images of America, and mounting the exhibition “Home Sweet Home” in 1984, with superstar architect Charles Moore, at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.
Kavanaugh hit upon the market umbrella idea while designing the interior of Soupcon, a restaurant at the Joseph Magnin store at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Recalls Kavanaugh: “The ceiling was very high, so I introduced the umbrellas to break up the space--to give a sense of place to the tables--and to absorb sound. I was inspired by the crude umbrellas you see in the markets of Mexico, made of just a pole and crosspiece with an old sheet or piece of canvas tied to each corner. But I liked the umbrellas’ square shape: It’s very architectural and it relates to nearby buildings.” When market day ends, the shopkeeper removes the sheet and dismantles the frame. Kavanaugh uses natural canvas, too, but she improved on the disassembly aspect by making her umbrella collapsible, like a regular umbrella. While Soupcon has gone the way of all 20-year-old restaurant interiors, major installations of Kavanaugh-designed umbrellas can be seen at the Newport Inn at Newport Beach and at Berks in Santa Monica.
Gere Kavanaugh-designed umbrellas are manufactured by Terra in City of Industry, 17855 Arenth Ave., 91744-0786; telephone (818) 912-8523. Market umbrellas are also available at Santa Barbara Designs, Santa Barbara, telephone (805) 965-3071, or through Kneedler Fauchere, Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, telephone (213) 855-1313.