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26 Articles

How many Modernists does it take to change a lightbulb? Surprisingly, it’s a concept that wouldn’t have entirely flummoxed the Marquess of Bute when he asked William Burges to reconfigure Cardiff Castle in 1868. Though electric light wasn’t part of the commission, Bute (then the world’s richest man) specified something ‘modern’ from his architect/soulmate, and the resulting Gothic Revival fantasy couldn’t have pleased him more. So despite its contemporary overtones of slick, monochromatic edginess the term can be far more wide-ranging than you’d expect; first used in 1555, it simply defines things that are conspicuously of their time. And so it continues, with the ‘m’ word appearing with regularity on the covers of design and decorating magazines both traditional and tub-thumpingly new. Everyone, it seems, can bend the label to…

1 Take heart in the idea that Christmas jumpers of old may have found a stylish new life – in the form of ‘Faroe’ (right; £80 per m; 14 colourways), made of recycled jerseys. Also repurposed is ‘Tetric’ (£70 per m; five colourways). Supplier Frame and Cover is committed to sustainability. Ring 020 3637 2628, or visit frameandcover.com. 2 Modern nomads who need to stay connected wherever they are must wait until January to get their mitts on Nolii’s debut tech-accessories collection. The neutral, pastel or Day- Glo gadgets include the ‘Bundle’ cable, which can be neatly tied up or secured to a work surface using a rest (from £25). The ‘Stack’ power pack charges any device without an electricity supply (£125). Visit nolii.co.uk. 3 Turn the clock back to the postwar…

antennae roundup

antennae roundup

LES ILLUMINATIONS

IN 1923, glassmaker Jean Perzel set himself up as a lamp-maker in premises opposite Parc Montsouris in the south of Paris. A Frenchman of German origin who worked with the glass artist and École de Nancy founder Jacques Grüber, Perzel was passionate about electric light. The widespread use of the incandescent bulb in the 1920s had transformed interior lighting. Candelabra and gas lamps were things of the past, and architects and designers such as Robert Mallet-Stevens, Eileen Gray and Pierre Chareau were experimenting with the production of modern lamps. Perzel’s aim was to ‘treat electricity in the way earlier glassmakers treated the sun’. The idea was to diffuse light efficiently while preventing dazzle. Concerned with visual comfort, he developed an extra-white optical glass of exceptional luminosity that was also gentle on…

LES ILLUMINATIONS

In the line of beauty

Since its creation in 1978 by Andrée Putman, Ecart International re-edits the designs of furniture, lamps and objects from the twentieth century, saved from oblivion by the desire to make those designers known, including Eileen Gray, Jean- Michel Frank and Adolphe Chanaux, Pierre Chareau, Michel Dufet and Mariano Fortuny. She was passionate about their work, and went to great lengths to find their pieces, then refurbished and republished them and made them know. In 1984, Putman championed the boutique hotel concept by transforming Morgans Hotel in New York. This project marked a turning point in her career: she succeeded in carrying out the refurbishment of a luxury hotel with very few resources, and with this asserted her simple, pure design style. She also went on to work for the great names…

In the line of beauty

MAKE A MOVEMENT

BAUHAUS : 1 Wall lamp, by Mart Stam, £354 approx, Tecnolumen. 2 ‘Laccio’ side table, by Marcel Breuer, £937, Knol l; with multi-purpose lamp, by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, £376 approx, Tecnolumen; sugar bowl, by Bauhaus Archiv, £195 (for a four-piece set), Alessi. 3 Cognac ‘Barcelona’ daybed, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, £10,982, Knoll. 4 Birch ‘Short’ chair, by Marcel Breuer, £1,780, Isokon Plus; cushion covered with ‘Morgan HB164-1’, by Hill Brown, £537.40 per m, Turnell & Gigon. 5 Canvas ‘Wassily’ chair, by Marcel Breuer, £1,333, Knoll; with ashtray, by Bauhaus Archiv, £120, Alessi. 6 Three-tiered ebonised-oak table, £4,560, Rose Uniacke; with ashtray, by Bauhaus Archiv, £110; tall basket, by Bauhaus Archiv, £65; cream jug, by Bauhaus Archiv, £195 (for a four-piece set); all Alessi. 7 Dark brown ‘Barcelona’ chair, by…

MAKE A MOVEMENT

On a visit to the National Portrait Gallery, the darkly glittering likenesses of the Tudor court impressed Henry James. He concluded: ‘If you are to be perpetuated, it is nothing that you be great and good – it is everything that you be dressed.’ It’s a paradox that by anchoring a subject to a specific place and moment, clothing can seal posterity by infusing the past with life – from Dürer the tousled bohemian to Sargent’s cruelly corseted heiresses. Leaving no doublet unbuttoned, CLOTHING ART: THE VISUAL CULTURE OF FASHION, 1600-1914 [1] (by Aileen Ribeiro; Yale, rrp £55, WoI price £49.50) explores, inter alia, the promotion of the nation state through style, the rise of ‘reform’ clothing and the importance of masquerade and dressing-up. When the architect Robert Venturi proclaimed ‘Less…

bauhaus on the beach

Visitors to Cape Cod, the flexed arm that juts out into the Atlantic south of Boston, tend to rent a boarded ‘Cape’ house, or hole up in an inn to feast on lobster and enjoy the changeable weather. Peter McMahon set up the Cape Cod Modern House Trust ten years ago with three specific aims, none of which included getting a rating on TripAdvisor. Rather, he intended to collect a record of the Outer Cape’s hitherto largely ignored Modern architecture; to restore a number of the endangered houses; and to use them as a platform for creative exchange, with a programme of artists’ residencies (John Pawson was an early visitor), symposiums and tours. Fans of Modernist architecture would do well to take note – the three restored houses offer an…

bauhaus on the beach

SERIOUS pursuits

As early as the Medieval period, bankers were aware that amassing wealth and power didn’t go unnoticed. Struck with the fear of God (magnified by Dante’s decree that usurers had a spot saved in the seventh circle of Hell), the money-lenders of Florence, for instance, set about paying their way out of danger with paintings, statues, even entire churches – anything to keep the Almighty (and, more importantly, the Pope) on their side. Among the finest of these offerings may well be Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi of 1423 – a gift showing gift-bearers, no less – commissioned by quattrocento magnate Palla Strozzi for his family’s chapel in the church of Santa Trinita. Complex, decadent and style-spanning, the altarpiece makes fine (and suitably festive) subject matter for Arcadia…

SERIOUS pursuits

Based on the Isle of Wight since 1972, Charnwood is one of the oldest makers of wood-burning stoves in the UK. Over the years its designs have revolutionised the use of timber as fuel, making it more efficient and environmentally friendly. Its latest design, the ‘Skye’, was inspired by the island’s dramatic coastal sea walls and concrete defences. As the company puts it: ‘In much the same way that these contain the island’s wild seas, the Skye contains the flames of the fire.’ The cast-iron, multi-fuel stove simplifies the process of wood burning (it operates with a simple push-and-pull control), while ensuring that all requirements of the Clean Air Act as well as the SIA Ecodesign Ready standards are met, making it safer and cleaner to burn wood in smoke control…

Dukes has taken its quintessentially English charm to Dubai, offering luxury and outstanding service. The fivestar resort, which has opened on the Palm, marks the first international property for the group under its ‘Dukes Collection’ umbrella. The hotel consists of 279 guestrooms, featuring 64 suites and a ladiesonly floor, the 20 rooms of which are styled using Liberty fabrics. The hotel also contains six restaurants, including the British GBR and Khyber, an Indian eatery where guests can enjoy a 180degree view across the Dubai marina district. Ring 00 971 4 455 1111, or visit dukesdubai.com. $ Taschen has opened a new store in Mayfair next to Claridge’s hotel. This will be the publisher’s second gallery in London and its 14th retail outlet internationally. The new space will offer a selection of…

4Spaces, 45 Breitensteinstrasse, CH-8037 Zurich (00 41 043 366 8945; 4spaces.ch). Abbott & Boyd. Ring 020 73519985, or visit abbottandboyd. co.uk. Adam Blencowe. Visit adamguyblencovre.com. Adrian Sassoon. Ring 020 75819888, or visit adriansassoon.com. Alessi, 22 Brook St, London Wl (02075189røO;dessLcom). Allermuir 10 Northburgh st, London ECl (020 72518059; allermuir.com). Altfield, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, LondonSW10(02073515893;ahfield.com).Animali Domestics, lbSaltoun Rd, London SW2 (07918 760871; animahdomestici.co.uk). Annie Sloan. Ring01865 803168, orvisitaimiesloan.com. Aram, 110 Drury Lane, London WC2 (020 7557 7557; aram.co.uk). Arte, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (0800 500 3335; arte-mtmutional.com). Artemide, 106 Great Russell St, London WC1 (020 76315200; artemide.com). Atrium, 28 Leonard St, London EC2 (020 76819933; atriumJtd.uk). BSQ. Ring 0333 014 3357, orvisitdiy.com. Bart Halpern.Ring 020 3624 0925, or visit barthalpern.com.The Basket Room. Ring01608 239482, orvisitthebasketroom.com. Benjamin Moore. Ring…

DECORATOR Gavin Houghton says he has ‘a thing for ceilings’, a preoccupation that goes back to childhood, when he cut out the little men from Hamleys carrier bags and stuck them on the ceiling of his bedroom. He also has a thing for green: ‘The colour of spring, the colour of nature – it’s no good a client asking me to decorate their house and telling me they don’t like green,’ he says. Then there are red and white stripes: ‘Always so good, whether a ribbon, a fabric or a rug – that mix of chic and circus, Arabic and French.’ Both make appearances in Gavin’s house in middle of Tangier. Most notably, the white ceilings of the L-shaped living and dining room are marked out in long, fat lines…

THE MODEST MODERNIST

PETER GREEN is in his seventh decade of printmaking, but standing in the small workroom in his bright top-floor flat, he admits to still feeling ‘apprehension before starting on a blank sheet of paper’. To overcome the ‘inertia’ he might sometimes spend ten minutes rearranging objects on his shelves: a foam number found on the floor outside the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York; Nigerian metal printing stencils made from flattened tin cans; Green’s childhood model of the Queen Mary liner, which ‘used to go up and down in the bath’; and a huge old proofing roller. He calls to his wife, Linda, to ask what she thinks of a new arrangement. ‘We don’t take it too seriously, it’s just a joke really,’ says Green in a way…

THE MODEST MODERNIST

REACH FOR THE STARS

The airy Summer Smoking Room at the top of the tower has one of the most comprehensive Victorian iconographic schemes in existence. The theme of the room is the cosmos, and the earth is depicted at the centre of its tiled floor in accordance with Ptolemaic astronomy. The wall tiles, painted by the artist Frederick Smallfield in 1874, show legends of the zodiacThe sun god tops a chandelier in the form of a chariot wheel. The dome above him is painted like the heavens, with figures representing the elements between the stars. The architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook has described these Neo-Gothic interiors as ‘three-dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold’ ONCE UPON a time, when a young marquess came to commission a fairytale castle in the centre of…

REACH FOR THE STARS

THE POLYMER PROPHET

A FLOCK of geese may have saved Rome from the Gauls, but it was a rubber duck that changed the history of furniture design. In the early 1960s, Piero Ambrogio Busnelli and his brother ran a small-scale furniture manufacturing business in the industrious Brianza district north of Milan. It was called Fratelli Busnelli, a literal name that is all of a piece with this serious, grounded part of the world, where, as the Italian spade-calling expression has it, they ‘say bread to bread and wine to wine’, and where even the hotels close during the August factory shutdown. Back then, Italian furniture production was forward-looking in its designs, mobilising talents like Gio Ponti, Marco Zanuso and Vico Magistretti, but manufacturing still relied on old-fashioned artisanship. Concepts came with built-in constraints: armchairs, for…

THE POLYMER PROPHET

ON A MINOR road at the edge of a Norfolk village, a thick hedge hides the domain of George Upwell. We are surprised when we visit by both his welcome and his highly civilised appearance. ‘Please come and sit down and have a cup of tea,’ he entreats us. Tall and thin, George has a crown of white hair, intense blue eyes, huge hands, and is as reserved as he is cordial. At the age of 74, he has just come back from a 145km walk with friends in the south of France. George is a potter and has been what he likes to call a ‘shack dweller’ out of choice for 30 years, with no running water, no electricity, no telephone and no loo – ‘a spade in the…

RELATIVE VALUES

THE BUILDING history of Bed ford shire’s Liscombe House is typical of so many minor country houses: a ribbon façade in the castellated Goth ick style aggrandising an older Elizabethan manor house in the 1760s, covered by a shell of stucco that has since been scraped back to expose weathered red bricks. With the arrival of the Bonsor family in the 1920s came an injection of capital, resulting in some glamorous interior decoration and the building of bathrooms, as well as a new staircase hall and double-height drawing room. But the bones of the old house, its straggling layout and warren of rooms connected by dog-leg corridors, were pretty much left as found. Alex Bonsor and his wife, Jane, returned from a decade in East Asia to make their family home…

RELATIVE VALUES

PURE WHITES: 1 ‘Clean White’ pure flat emulsion, from £46.50 per 2.5 litres, Paint and Paper Library. 2 ‘Pure White’ matt emulsion, £35 per 2.5 litres, Laura Ashley. 3 ‘Loft White’ intelligent gloss, £29 per litre, Little Greene. 4 ‘Pure White’ matt emulsion, from £23 per litre, Designers Guild. 5 ‘Cherry Beginnings’ matt emulsion, by Terence Conran, from £38.50 per 2.5 litres, Master Paintmakers. 6 ‘Strong White’ exterior masonry paint, £74.50 per 5 litres, Farrow & Ball. 7 ‘Fuji’ oil gloss, from £31 per 750ml, Paint and Paper Library. 8 ‘Chantilly Lace’ natura semi-gloss, from £26.50 per 940ml, Benjamin Moore. 9 ‘Pure’ chalk paint, from £18.95 per litre, Annie Sloan. 10 ‘Ultra White’ aura exterior paint, from £27 per 940ml, Benjamin Moore. 11 ‘Pure White’ wood/metal gloss, £27 per litre,…

THE UNDERGROUND train that whisks you from central Berlin to the Horseshoe housing estate doubles as a time machine. In 40 minutes you are transported back to the Weimar era, when this landscaped community of modest dwellings was built on a manorial property at the edge of the city. Low-rise blocks radiate from the parabola of apartments that gives the project its name. The Hufeisensiedlung is one of six Berlin housing complexes that comprise a Unesco World Heritage site, and it still looks as it did in the 1920s. Only the cars are new. A pedestrian path leads from the station to a modest white house, set back behind apple trees and climbing roses. Step inside and you are immersed in a world of colour, one created by architect Bruno Taut…

ROOMS WITH NO VIEW

WITH ITS scorched black exterior, Les Ers could be mistaken for a big burned-out woodcutter’s shed in a forest clearing. But step over the threshold and it is a revelation: spacious and spartan in its simplicity, its soaring chambers suffused in soft light. The house is almost windowless, bar a few small panes way above head height and some skylights, and there is scarcely any furniture, just a large sofa, a bookshelf, two tables and some benches. But a great deal of meditative calmness fills the void. It seems mystifying that no broad sliding-glass doors let the great outdoors in. This is because the owner Damien Odoul, the French film director and poet, read In Praise of Shadows by the Japanese novelist Jun’ichiro¯ Tanizaki, before embarking on building the house…

ROOMS WITH NO VIEW

EXPORTS OF IMPORT

CECILIA AND ELENA Maresca use the finest Milano salami to tempt their dachshund Gulliver – of lilliputian stature but brobdingnagian spirit – into position for the photographs at their studio. (Readers can see for themselves that this was not entirely successful.) Born and brought up in Genoa, immaculately dressed and impeccably connected, the two sisters are the very model of Italian design dealers. They could have chosen to establish their new business, Maresca Interiors, which occupies a mews house in west London, as a showcase for the Italian Modern pieces that are their birthright. Instead, the studio’s square white rooms are filled with mid-20th-century furniture and artefacts from Brazil, to whose cultural heritage they can stake an equal claim. Their mother is Brazilian – a sculptor, archaeologist and decorative- arts restorer…

EXPORTS OF IMPORT

1 Italian lighting company Viabizzuno has collaborated with many big-name architects, including Shigeru Ban, Claudio Silvestrin and David Chipperfield. For the ‘Candela di Vals’ light (£1,043), which hangs above the Bonsors’ island (page 136), it worked with Peter Zumthor. Ring 00 39 518 908 011, or visit viabizzuno.com. 2 For popular designs such as yellow or blue ‘Gaelic’ hand-knotted Tibetan wool rug (£830 per sq m), by Alexandra Champalimaud, the Rug Company offers an online custom design service, where shape, size and colour can be adjusted. Opt for pink and white on a grand scale, like the owners of the Bedfordshire house (page 134). Ring 020 7384 0980, or visit therugcompany.com. 3 Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted a glass ‘milk carton’ on the Bonsors’ kitchen table, as well as another golden version…

EXHIBITION diary

Surrealism in Egypt: Art et Liberté 1938-1948 TATE LIVERPOOL Albert Dock, Liverpool In 1934, Lee Miller closed her successful photography studio in New York and went to live in Cairo with her new husband, wealthy businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. There she found freedom from social constraints by making long journeys into the desert with her Rolleiflex. Her work from that period shows her Surreal ist eye at its best. Her surroundings presented endless possibilities for her style of the image trouvé, giving us photographs such as Cock Rock (1939) and the well-known Portrait of Space (1937), in which a birdlike cloud beyond torn mesh conveys her longing for escape. It was natural she should meet others of similar aspirations. Surrealism had a foothold in Egypt thanks to Georges Henein, who in Paris…

EXHIBITION diary

THE BAUHAUS IN BRITAIN

My epiphany was a month in Finland during the centenary of Alvar Aalto, the great Finnish Modernist architect, born in 1898. Until then I had worked in the fashion industry, founding a store in Stockholm dedicated to the best of British menswear, and later working in London for Paul Smith and Patrick Cox. But the realisation that product design and architecture had a longer and deeper cultural impact made me decide to set up Skandium in 1998. I was well aware of the furniture the Bauhaus master Marcel Breuer had designed for the Isokon Furniture Company in the 1930s, but it was not until I had the chance to move into the former penthouse flat of Isokon founders Jack and Molly Pritchard that the stars aligned. Here was a Grade I-listed…

THE BAUHAUS IN BRITAIN

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