Just what is it about Jobim's living room that sets my heart a-flutter?  I'm peering at it closely, now... trying to dissect this mysterious living room lust...  Certainly, the physical design of the room is appealing... the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glossy floor of indeterminate material... that's not it, though, is it.

   It's a public space, obviously, yet Jobim's "tools of trade" live un-self-consciously amidst the coffee tables and side chairs.  I adore the organized clutter here: the stacks of books... electronic equipment within arm's reach of the keyboard...  the unspoken invitation of the bentwood stool adjacent to the grand piano.  Can you look at this room without imagining Jobim at the bench, dragging at a cigarette with one hand, caressing keys with the other?  I can't!  He is so very present in this empty room that I imagine, after his death, it might have felt haunted.

    And yet, I think this room would appeal me even if I weren't completely besotted with the composer of Desafinado!   There is a relaxed, comfortable kind of atmosphere here, as if it were "designed" with function and ease, rather than style, at the forefront...   You'll note that both the architectural space and the furnishings are distinctly uncomplicated.  The overall lines of the room are clean; the surfaces slick or hard, with a little relief from a few folkloric textiles.  Now, as a rule, I am quite the fan of tactile pleasure in furniture or elsewhere... the kinds of textures my hand creeps toward tend to be chenille or velvet or velour.  (Child of the '70s, I suppose.)  Why, then, do I imagine that I'd find this room to be supremely comfy?  Perhaps it's because those smooth surfaces are composed from natural materials, polished so that they gleam in the sunlight.  (They're by no means stark or cold.)  Or perhaps it's because this room seems so "un-fussy," so natural.

    Relaxed... functionally cluttered... unstudied... now you tell me: Is it a contradiction that I think it's the most elegant room I've ever seen?