Category: Art

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Architecture Art Country Houses People

Strawberry Hill House Twickenham London + Horace Walpole

The Royal and Imperial Academy’s Study Leave Part I

Before the quips of Oscar Wilde there were the quotes of Horace Walpole. Take, “The world is a tragedy to those who feel but a comedy to those who think.” Or, “The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.” His description of Twickenham, “Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around,” might have come straight from the script of An Ideal Husband. But Horace was a century earlier, destined to be forever ahead of his time.

The man who added a consonant to a style. The man whose house became an architectural genre. The man who loved cats. Horace Walpole was the son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister. He stretched the term ‘polymath’ to its very limit. Strawberry Hill Gothick was his contribution to the lexicon of architecture. Its origin was his summer villa Strawberry Hill which was both a private retreat and a house for show. A maison de plaisance.

Strawberry Hill, created over the latter half of the 18th century, was “The castle of my ancestors”. Or at least the ancestors of his imagination. Aware of his status as landed gentry rather than aristocracy, Horace boldly set out about designing a house with the help of friends such as Robert Adam to elevate his social standing. Medieval revival meets idiosyncratic charm. Carcassonne comes to TW1. Phallic finials, pepperpotted polygonal perpendicular verve, cusped lights, quatrefoils and crenellations, it’s a sugary confection, a castle dipped in wedding cake icing.

Horace desired theatrical effect, nostalgic ambience and what he called “gloomth”, not historical accuracy. He dream that, “Old castles, old pictures, old histories and the babble of old people make one live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one.” To this end, after spending half a century filling Strawberry Hill to the rafters or at least rib vaults, no stranger to self publicity, he published a catalogue A Description of Strawberry Hill. Half a century later, the collection was posthumously dispersed in a 24 day sale. Lost Treasures is an exhibition of some of his collection returned on loan to its original setting. For the first time this century, it is possible to enjoy the vision of the man who put the gee into ogee.

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Architecture Art

Gdańsk + Fragments

Remnants and Sacraments

Gdansk Corner Building © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Danziger designers are good with fragments; maybe because they’ve had to be, historically. The largest city of Kashbubia, Gdańsk has been Prussian, German and Polish. It still bears the scars of 20th century troubles but wears them with pride. Take the bathroom of Tarina Pizza Café opposite Pod Lososiem. No, really. Somewhat randomly, it contains a section of crumbling brick wall. A sign reads:

St John's Church Exterior Gdansk Poland © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“The relics of gothic loadbearing walls, of bourgeois tenement houses, the so called ‘neighbourly walls’, located on the border of neighbouring plots set out in the mid 14th century. The entire structure of a tenement house was supported on the loadbearing walls. Due to this façade of a house being relieved of loadbearing function, it could be constructed independently and included large window openings. The owner of a plot covered the cost of one bearing wall only. The appearance of the façade, floorplans and height of the tenement house depended on individual needs, creativity and wealth of the owner. Individual plots were sometimes joined together which increased the possibility of building bigger and more comfortable dwellings… These walls were uncovered during archaeological excavations carried out in 2007 to 2009. They were restored and moved to the contemporary ground level which is higher than centuries ago.”

St John's Centre Gdansk Nave © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St John's Centre Gdansk Concrete Column © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St John's Centre Gdansk © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St John's Centre Gdansk Column © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fragmentation reaches a high art form in St John’s Centre. On a late summer Sunday morning, Gdańsk Radio is recording a choral mass in this most atmospheric of surroundings. Glorious juxtapositions never jarring | mismatching materials according as one | enforced eclecticism appearing by choice. How did it come about? In 1944, as the threat of Air Raids loomed, all moveable relics of this ancient church were taken and stored in warehouses. The following year, the threat became reality. In the 1980s the church was rebuilt but when a brick column in the nave collapsed, it was bravely erected in concrete and the remaining five reinforced in concrete. And so began a journey into non contextualism.

St John's Centre Gdansk Statue © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

In 1995 the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre took over the building. Paintings, memorials, wooden stalls and, memorably, four paintings illustrating The Wise and the Foolish Virgins parable, are gradually being reinstated. The chancel with its 1611 stone altar remains sacred; the nave with its contemporary stage, profane. Beauty from destruction.

St John's Centre Gdansk Brickwork © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

If St John’s was a street in Dublin it would be called Henrietta.

St John's Centre Gdansk 10 Virgins Painting © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Categories
Architecture Art Hotels

Lavender’s Blue + Radisson Blu + Gdańsk

Teutonic Nights and Lighting the Trip Fantastic

Naturally we’d end up a few miles from the Russian border this summer. It’s baking, and we mean fry-an-egg-on-the-pavement baking hot, but we’re cool as cucumbers on ice. As the temperature soars, so does our sense of anticipation. Burn! Home of Daniel Fahrenheit, electric Tricity it is. Radisson Blu. Blue is the new black. Breakfast has the eggs factor. Suite, the wow. The hotel hides behind a wildly flamboyant 17th century façade looking across Dlugi Darg. A street named desire.

At the epicentre of the province of Pomerania is Gdańsk| Gdynia | Sopot. The trinity that is Tricity. Gdańsk and Sopot are poles apart, or at least separated by a 30 minute taxi ride. The former is Poland’s most historic city, looping round the Motlawa River, all remade medieval dreams and spires; the latter is Poland’s most exclusive resort, embracing the Baltic Sea, all cream hued beaches and wind sculpted dunes. Sopot has nightclubs – lots of Pole dancers and last tangos. Gdynia is somewhere in between, by map and metaphor. It’s also worth heading to nearby Hel and back for spotting the haves and the have yachts.

Dr Paul Richards, Chairman of King’s Lynn Hanseatic Club, recognises an Anglo Polish connection: “Gdańsk and King’s Lynn were major trading partners in the 15th and 16th centuries.” Knowing both places well, he recommends, “The Maritime Museum on the River Motlawa – it includes the Great Crane of Zuraw. Also the very large brick church St Mary’s which isn’t far from there.” St Mary’s is purportedly the largest brick church in the world. He highlights Dlugi Darg as a street of great historic interest. Tricity is hot.

Right. Off to The Esteemed Graduates of International Academies of Fine Art Show in The Great Arsenal.  The Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage goes to the talented young artist Aneta Kublik. She describes her apparently monochromatic work See Invisible, “The aim of my work is to show anxieties and fears, feelings that have no form or shape. To reveal the visibility of these abstract concepts I used a figurative representation of deer – animals immersed in fear. By limiting the palette of colours, I focussed on the right brush movement which creates animals, plants and landscapes emerging from the darkness. My works are seemingly black, but with the right light or perspective we can discover the image – its movement, shape and hidden colours.”

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Art

Inishowen + Lough Swilly Donegal

Shot in Colour on a Tuesday Afternoon in Summertime

Wherein is shown: nothing is ever truly black and white.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of Donegal I, 1833 to 1835: “Lough Swilly, though not the most frequented, is the best and safest harbour on the north coast of Ireland. It is, from its conflux with the ocean to Ballyraine Bridge, by the ship’s course, about 23 Irish miles and a half long. Mariners allow that it would afford secure anchorage to the whole British Navy. It is encumbered with but few rocks without the tide mark and these, except Swilly Rocks, are out of the ship’s course in and not dangerous. The bottom from the very entrance is clean sand. It holds well and ships may anchor almost anywhere within it, but the most secure anchoring places are under Buncrana Castle or off the river in from two to eight fathoms, or at Rathmullan.”

Patricksmas Tides and Michaelmas Springs: life’s visceral ebbs and flows, from Scaltmore Creek to Sludden Creek. Bwellaorisky and Rhuinadrinnea, southed by sand hills and sandy coves.

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Art Fashion Luxury People

Africa Fashion Week London 2018 + Mary Martin London

Runway Success

Lights! Cameras! Lots of action! Every mid August for the last seven years, Freemasons’ Hall Covent Garden has been transformed into Europe’s largest festival of African and African inspired design talent. Africa Fashion Week London brings the second largest continent’s burgeoning fashion industry to the international market. Upon arrival, we get lost in a kaleidoscopic exhibition full of the bold and brilliant, a bazaar in marble halls. Up the marble staircase, crossing the marble landing, we’re ushered into the grandest marble hall of them all.

There’s almost as much glamour off the catwalk as on it at this year’s Saturday evening show – helps we’ve front row seats for people watching. The fairy dust of royalty also helps. We’re sitting next to His Majesty the King of Nigeria. It’s the grand finale, the last of the catwalk shows and stars:

The music show begins. Actually make that music! Afrobeats reverberate off all the marble. It gets more dancey and trancey with Mary Martin: she’s mixed her own beats. Mary did, after all, work in the music industry before taking fashion by storm. The crowd goes wild! Her handpicked models stride down the catwalk – try the Alexander Technique to techno – amidst huge applause, dresses swirling, skirts burling, scarves whirling. At the fitting earlier, she’d told us, “My mother used to sew and I just picked it up naturally. I just had a gift for design and started off making my own outfits.” And the rest is history as it happens!

As the catwalk show draws to a close, Her Royal Highness Princess of the Congo rises to speak: “We can dress very well. But we also raise proceeds for charity in our industry. I sell clothes in New Orleans to raise funds for women with no health insurance in the US.” The crowd cheers hard. “Women – we love fashion! Men too! We royal families of Africa love fashion!” The crowd cheers harder. “We Africans love to party!” On that note, with a lot further ado, the whole hall erupts into dancing: models, designers, managers, guests and of course royals. Everyone spills onto the catwalk to work their moves. The lighting gets stronger! The music gets louder! The moves get wilder!

Categories
Architecture Art

Calais Grand Theatre + Gustave Malgras Delmas

Gilead’s Calling | The Innate Ordinariness of a Saturday Morning

“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson

The Grand Theatre, like the Town Hall, was built to belatedly celebrate the 1885 merger of the towns of Calais and Saint-Pierre. The site was once a cemetery. President Emile Loubet laid the foundation stone in 1903. Its architect was Gustave Malgras Delmas. He was no stranger to municipal projects, having designed the Palace of Fervaques in nearby Saint-Quentin where most of his work is concentrated. The building is pure architectural theatre, a palatial performance in stone. First floor statues between the coupled Corinthian columns propping up the façade represent comedy, poetry, dance and music. Second floor busts commemorate the composer Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729 to 1817), the dramatists Alain-René Lesage (1668 to 1747) and Guillaume Pigault-Leburn (1753 to 1835), and author of The Siege of Calais Pierre de Belloy (1727 to 1775). In front of the Grand Theatre is a 1910 statue to Lillois Joseph Jacquard, inventor of an advanced weaving loom which greatly contributed to the success of the Calais lace industry. Gustave’s brother-in-law was the composer Marc Delmas.

“It’s not a man’s working hours that is important, it is how he spends his leisure time.” What Are We Doing Here? Marilynne Robinson

Categories
Art

The Opal Coast + Calais Beach

Chartered Waters | French Kits | You’re Not From Here

The past is a foreign country; sometimes so is the present. Golden crowns glisten upon the jasper sea off the Opal Coast. Waves beat in from an infinitude of azure horizons. Crossing the Channel, crossing the Rubicon. What Alexis de Tocqueville called “gifts which heaven shares out by chance”. Igniting unforeseen possibilities, purveying happenstance; renewals of experience apart, we are unacquainted with neo and pseudo. Marilynne Robinson writes in What Are We Doing Here? “And yet the beautiful persists, and so do eloquence and depth of thought, and they belong to all of us because they are the most pregnant evidence we have of what is possible in us.” The Bishop of Stepney nods, “We are all pregnant with our own death. We always carry the knowledge of our ending with us.” Keeping it surreal, precepts acknowledged, spangled heavens approaching, Calais stretches forth in eloquent beauty under an eternal sky, solecisms silenced, postprandial ponderings never ceasing.

Categories
Art People

Lavender’s Blue + Lavender’s Blue

Striking a Striking Pose

Two angles. One designer. Moschino. Zero submission. Such subversion!

“You are so uncluttered. You are the Holly Golightly of my life.”

Categories
Art Luxury People

Masterpiece Art Fair London Preview 2018 + Marina Abramović

Tipping into the Beyond

Well life can’t just be one big party. Actually, yes it can. Snapping Sir David Davies and Leonie Frieda at the Irish Embassy. Giggling with The Baroness “call me Emma” Pidding at the House of Lords. Wherever there’s Perrier-Jouët, there’s Lavender’s Blue. Thank goodness then, for another year, Perrier-Jouët is the Champers Partner of Masterpiece. Punchy! The Perrier-Jouët Terrace, a vivid realm in the pneumatic womb of the blow up Royal Hospital Chelsea, is where it’s at. Its new Blanc de Blancs Non Vintage is “a single varietal Chardonnay, a true and unadulterated expression of the emblematic grape at the heart of the Perrier-Jouët style,” pitches Champagne Ambassador Jonathan Simms. The Queen’s Rolls Royce, yes the one Meghan Markle borrowed for her wedding, is on display. Summer’s here, so is everyone; the Season’s begun.

The tradition that began last year of unveiling a major new artwork continues with huge aplomb. “Performance is an immaterial form of art,” explains the Serbian painter turned performance artist Marina Abramović. She’s 72. “At this point of my life, facing mortality, I decided to capture my performance in a more permanent material than just film and photography. I chose alabaster based on its history and properties – luminosity, transparency… They have a hauntingly physical presence but, as you move around the pieces, they decompose into intricately carved ‘landscapes of alabaster’.” Presented by Factum Arte in collaboration with Lisson Gallery, Marina’s Five Stages of Maya Dance fuse performance, light and sculpture through a mist of condensation. The party continues into the night on Sloane Square. Such unleashed chutzpah!

Off to The Most Noble Order of the Garter at Windsor. This year, the Sovereign’s two appointment includes Viscount Brookeborough, Lord Lieutenant of Fermanagh. So the Northern Irish contingent is growing. Alan Brooke, 3rd Viscount Brookeborough, owns the beautiful Colebrooke Estate near Fivemiletown. Ashbrooke House, the estate’s elegant dower house, is available to let. The Viscount has been The Queen’s Personal Lord-in-Waiting since 1997, commuting several days a week across the Irish Sea. He served with Her Majesty’s Armed Forces from 1971 to 1994. Also present from the west of the Province is James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn. The Chancellor of the Order, he owns Baronscourt Estate in County Tyrone, all 15,000 acres of it. Today, he’s donned his great grandfather’s robes. The London based Earl of Ulster arrives. His 11 year old son Xan is the Queen’s Page of Honour. And then of course there are certain guests from Northern Ireland.

There’s just about as much pomp and glory as England can stomp up. Which is a lot. Such unfurled magnificence! Beefeaters and Military Knights of Windsor stand to attention. The Irish Guards’ mascot – an Irish wolfhound of course – steals the processional show. The Royals are a veritable bloom of ostrich plumes, black velvet robes and insignia glistening in the shafts of sunlight. Trumpets sound: a Zadokic zenith: The Queen arrives last at 3pm on the dot looking resplendent with her perfectly powdered face and clustered diamond earrings. Prince William looks solemn. Prince Charles and Camilla are all smiles. So is a very regal Princess Alexandra. She looks just like her namesake grandmother. Her Royal Highness is Patron of Masterpiece. Atop a spinning world, embracing this crazy pulsing era, it’s Perrier-Jouët-o’clock once again.

The Marchioness arrives.

So does Mary Martin.

We’re not gonna split town just yet.

Categories
Architecture Art People

Royal Academy of Arts London + Senate Room

Well Connected 

A private tour of the soon-to-open new galleries and lecture theatre of the Royal Academy of Arts led by the Secretary and Chief Executive, Charles Saumarez Smith*. But first, morning coffee in The Academicians’ Room in The Keeper’s House. The room is lined with tongue ‘n’ groove reclaimed panelling which resembles the untreated backs of period paintings. Very tongue ‘n cheek.

Connecting Burlington House (off Piccadilly) to Burlington Gardens (near Bond Street) is “the gist of what we’ve done,” Charles says, looking down into the newly revealed vaulted passageway with its exposed brickwork which now connects the two buildings. “People tend to think in plan when designing. But when this former back-of-house space was dropped three feet, it created this incredible volume.” The original garden steps of Burlington House have been retained as an indoors staircase leading down into the passageway.

Entering Burlington Gardens, he remarks, “The architect David Chipperfield has kept the integrity of Sir James Pennethorne’s original architecture. There’s always a conundrum – do you reinstate the original paint scheme? David has achieved a very good balance. In the Senate Room, the Victorian ceiling colours have been kept but the walls painted a lighter shade. The colour schemes create a sense of the era but they’re not archaeologically accurate.”

“We put in a café called Poster Bar on the ground floor which complements the shops on Bond Street. From my perspective, having a coffee at 8am is very important and rather nice!” Charles reckons. The first floor Senate Room is now a brasserie. It serves small plates (£8) such as Piedmontese peppers or mussel, prawn and squid seafood salad. The cheese plate (£14) includes gorgonzola naturale, robiola tri latte, pecorino ross and truffled honey, fig and marmalade. Puddings (£6.50) include blueberry and violet panna cotta or chocolate bignè.

*Charles’ nephew is the talented neoclassical architect George Saumarez Smith

Categories
Architects Architecture Art People Town Houses

Sir John Soane’s Museum Holborn London + Emily Allchurch

Collage of the Titans

After organising a hugely successful and academically driven Irish Georgian Society London work-in-progress tour of Pitzhanger Manor, Sir John Soane’s country home (due to reopen to the public next year), an invitation to breakfast at his townhouse  museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields proves providentially irresistible. Morning sunlight pierces the shadowy interiors, soaking the sarcophagi, the inimitable collection lit by shafts of coloured light through stained glass cupolas and lanterns and domes. Nowhere in the capital is there such a multilayering of art and ideas. As Bryan Ferry used to sing, “All styles served here…”

We’ve heard of the Soane style being heralded as the forerunner of modernism – think of his streamlined later work – but today’s proclamation is about his postmodernism aesthetic. Applying such plaudits, bestowing such honorifics to the ultimate disruptor, is but a fitting tribute. Dr Bruce Boucher, Director of Sir John’s Soane Museum, says, “In many ways Soane was postmodern. He’d no fear of adapting different styles. Even the double coding of this building as a house-museum and workplace is postmodern.” A diorama of China Wharf by the cleverest postmodernists, CZWG, takes pride of place in the first floor gallery space. The custard yellow egg in the custard yellow drawing room looks strangely familiar. Turns out it’s from Terry Farrell’s TV AM building.

There’s also an exhibition on the ground floor of what Bruce calls “remarkable digital collages”. It comprises three works by the artist Emily Allchurch. She trained as a sculptor and has an MA from the Royal College of Art. Emily was inspired by significant works by the artist Giovanni Piranesi and the architectural illustrator Joseph Gandy in the Museum’s collections. “The light boxes are windows into another world,” she explains. “My practice creates a dialogue between historic artworks and the present day, using hundreds of photographs and a seamless digital collage technique to recreate the original image in a contemporary idiom. I always take my own photographs. Visiting the buildings is part of the journey.”

Grand Tour: In Search of Soane (after Gandy) is a reworking of Soane’s built projects. Its companion piece Grand Tour II: Homage to Soane (after Gandy) is neoclassical architecture around Britain with “unbuilt” Soane additions. The roofscape of Calke Abbey is amusingly spruced up by three splendid domes. Such euphoric recall! Punchy. Like Joseph Gandy’s work, both these pieces were exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The third piece is Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (after Piranesi).”It’s a conversation about London and Rome,” Emily confirms, “a reminder that empires can collapse.” There’s a weight and confidence to her work. It displays great artistry. And super wit. A “Dead Slow” sign next to mausolea; “If you lived here you’d be home now!” graffiti beside Pitzhanger Manor.

Soon, it will be time for the Irish Georgian Society London to return to its roots. A party to celebrate half a century since the restoration of Castletown House in County Kildare, the Society’s first major success story, awaits.

Categories
Art Restaurants

Bonhams Restaurant London + Tom Kemble

Lots to Eat

Bonhams London @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Its dual address summons up flattering visions of country estates and urban sophistication. Haunch of Venison Yard and New Bond Street. Neither entrance is entirely obvious. The former is through a passageway into a courtyard; the latter is through an auction gallery, down a dogleg, up a spiral. London for Moschino trousered  Londoners. Not forgetting rich Americans and Asians. The restaurant is in a back room, and that’s a compliment. Reticent, exclusive, discreet; in the know, in the now.

Bonhams London Restaurant @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Daringly, sparingly white walls except for one wall of windows. Just four carefully chosen artworks: Demolition Squad by William Roberts, British, 1895 to 1980 (£50,000 to £70,000); Untitled by Sam Francis, American, 1923 to 1994 (£8,000 to £12,000); The Musician by John Craxton, British, 1922 to 2009 (£30,000 to £50,000); and Tulips No.1 by Ivon Hitchens, British, 1893 to 1979 (£25,000 to £35,000).

Bonhams Restaurant Interior @ Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An early 21st century restaurant serenade to a late 18th century auction house. Welcome to Bonhams Restaurant, strings attached. Only 24 covers. Head Chef Tom Kemble’s dishes live up to the address. All the freshness of the outdoors and all the style of the city. And a splash of the sea. Michelin starred Mayfair. Three course lunch £50 (excluding some liquid refreshment):

Categories
Art

Ballygally Head Antrim + Lavender’s Blue

The Mists of Time

“And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine”

Categories
Art Country Houses Design Developers Luxury People

Lavender’s Blue + The Irish Times + The Gloss

Russian Unorthodox

Lavender’s Blue. A Vision | A Residence | A Blog. Our Gesamtkunstwerk. A decade of collecting and arranging. Irish country house attic style. So where better to celebrate in print than The Irish Times? Better again, The Gloss supplement. An A3 splash in Ireland’s glossiest A1 publication. Style Editor Aislinn Coffey gets it: “Your project and home was such a breath of fresh air, I adore it!” Virtuosic studies in light and shadow. Nothing’s really ever black and white (unless like us you’re under contract for the technicolour snaps). All things considered really, Lavender’s Blue is worthy of a retrospective at the Grand Palais. Clearly, we were an oversight by the National Gallery’s Monochrome exhibition gallerist.

Why the name Lavender’s Blue? Apart from being good with colour and enjoying the paradoxical phrase (surely lavender is purple to the masses?), there are geographical reasons for the naming of the vision that became a house that became a collection of essays that became a lifestyle that became an obsession that became a romance. This part of Battersea, back in its rural Surrey days, was awash with lavender fields. Nearby Lavender Hill and Lavender Sweep pay testimony to its perfumed history. Sweet. Oh and the Marillion song is pretty nifty too.

Step inside, and the rooms could be anywhere (or at least anywhere pretty decent); there are no visual references to its location in southwest London. Unless you count an 18th century threaded collage of Kew Palace. The street facing windows are opaque while the rear of the house reveals itself only onto a private cobbled trellised courtyard overlooked by absolutely nobody. A little piece of secret London. There are subtle hints of the Ireland of yore: a diorama of the long demolished Antrim Castle in the hallway; a framed envelope from the Earl of Kilmorey in the drawing room. But really it’s an international collection: no antiques stall or flea market or second hand shop or vintage pop-up was safe from plundering for the last 10 years. Amsterdam, Belfast, Bilbao, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Lisbon, Paris, Paris again, Rotterdam and of course Savannah.

The naïve mirrored mini portico is one of several purchases from Savannah. We visited the Deep South’s finest after devouring Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The events in John Berendt’s book happened yonks ago but Savannah is still oh so magical. Meeting antiques dealer Charlie Brown, he gave us fragments of a chandelier from Jim William’s home, Mercer House. Jim was the central protagonist. The chandelier was smashed to myriad pieces when he shot his lover dead. We’ve slotted the crystal pieces into a standard lamp. Perfection.

The tiny mirror framed with horns is also from Savannah. The tinted photograph of General Lee came from an antiques arcade. It’s faded so his features can only be seen from certain angles like a shimmering ghost. “The family were glad to rid of it!” the dealer proclaimed. “He’s a bad omen!” Despite being swathed in bubble wrap, the picture split down the middle in our suitcase, hopefully dispelling any malignant spirits in the process. En route to Savannah we simply had to stop off in Atlanta for “Funday Sunday”. Margaret Mitchell’s flat where she wrote Gone with the Wind was a must-see. It’s also a late 19th century building – roughly the same size as Lavender’s Blue.

It may all look a little shambolic but there’s method (occasionally) and sanity (mostly) in the madness. Chicness amongst the shabbiness. Collections within collections include 18th century wax silhouettes hung in a group in a dark corner of the drawing room. “Darker again!” we ordered our ever patient decorator. And so he added another layer – or was it four or five? – of purple paint to the drawing room walls. At night, and even during the day, the walls merge into the charcoal grey ceiling. Antlers cast mysterious shadows by night. A tiny internal window over the recessed bookcase yields yet more mysterious lighting.

The bedroom is all about pattern. More is more. So very Sister Parish. Sanderson wallpaper covers the walls and ceiling while a Christian Lacroix shirt has found new life stretched across two square canvases. Nothing is coordinated – matching is just too bourgeois. Ok, the blue and white theme of the kitchen is pretty controlled but that’s all. And we’ve got to live up to our Delftware. It’s an eclectic collection, a layered timeless look, nothing too contrived or designed. The collection is complete, right down to the Argentine spoon embellished with Evita’s face and the majolica vase next to the piano. We’re resting on our laurels in the courtyard. Ah, the courtyard. So very Lanning Roper. Scene of lively summer lunches (Selfridges catering) and even livelier autumn soirées (more Selfridges catering). So very Loulou de la Falaise. Mostly with Annabel P, Lavender’s Blue intern amanuensis, on overtime. It’s getting greener and greener and greener. Grey Gardens watch this space. Sorry neighbours.

So what do the literati and glitterati have to say? Their quotes benefit from a touch of upper class case dramatic effect and a dash of well placed irony. “The place has great panache,” says Rupert Thomas, Editor of The World of Interiors. His predecessor Min Hogg, now Editor-at-Large, thinks it’s “lovely”. “Your rooms are a triumph,” believes architectural historian Dr Roderick O’Donnell. “They’re brilliantly decorated.” Artist and country house doyenne Amanda Brooke agrees, “What a triumph your understated flat is.” Jacqueline Duncan, Principal of Inchbald School of Design, thinks it’s “Bohemian”. Reverend Andy Rider, Rector of Christ Church Spitalfields, calls it “Baronial”. Astrid Bray, MD of Hyde Park Residence, loves it: “Wow! Quite a place.”

“LOVE it!” breathes model Simon Duke, simply and succinctly. Loving is a theme. “LOVE it!” repeats neighbour Emma Waterfall, MD of Cascade Communications. “Especially the William Morris inspiration in the bedroom. Fab.” Ok. “LOVE the purple!” raves interior designer to the stars Gabhan O’Keeffe. Still focusing on the drawing room, Nicky Haslam, man about town and interior decorator, is a fan: “That room is EVERYTHING I love!” Lady Lucy French, girl about town and theatre director exclaims, “I LOVE your interior design! Stunning!” The final words must go to conservation architect extraordinaire John O’Connell. “Very brave, very Russian, very YOU!”

Categories
Architecture Art

Pasaje Defensa San Telmo + Casa Pardo San Telmo Buenos Aires

We Cry, We Laugh, We Seek, We Shop

“Do you like Chopin?” goes the old joke. “Only in San Telmo,” we sardonically reply. Nobody does shabby chic better than the Porteños – except the Anglo Irish. But they’re another story altogether. Dundering in looks better in the dusty heat, deep in the United Provinces of the Silver River.

Entering Pasaja Defensa surely must be the closest contemporary experience to visiting an Ancient Roman villa. Originally built for the Ezeiza family in 1880, it’s arranged around a cloistered courtyard supported by the slimmest of columns, four poster bed girthed really, sprouting vegetative capitals.

During the 1930s recession, the building housed 32 families. Nowadays it’s the home of antique dealers, artists and craftsmen. And a forlorn grey cat.

Across the street from Pasaja Defensa is Casa Pardo. A counterpart as sweet as any in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Wachet Auf. If the former is all open aria atria; the latter is a high octave top glazed gallery and a long one at that. Dating from 1745, Casa Pardo was and is a cultural salon. Scion Monica Pardo reminisces,

“Anyone would believe that the ‘gatherings’ were meetings that were held only in the colonial era, but in the 20th century in the House of Pardo, these meetings were held where many collectors, museum directors and historians had coffee and chatted.  Many years ago, when I was very young, I was visiting my grandfather at his Sarmiento Street store and I heard an animated debate between the Unitarians and Federalists.”

We buy, we laugh, we see, we drop. And later, much later, we dance.

Categories
Architecture Art People

Teatro Colón Buenos Aires + Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka

Linger for a Moment

Ana María Martínez, Puerto Rico’s finest vocal export, is known for her dramatic performances. A few years ago, opera lovers at Glyndebourne were treated to rather more drama than they anticipated. The soprano, who was playing the lead role in Antonín Dvorak’s opera Rusalka, was nearing the end of the first act when, with abandon, she pulled away from her prince, fell off the stage, and landed in the orchestra pit.

Fortunately no ambulances were required at Ana María’s performance in Teatro Colón. One of the world’s great opera houses, up there with Milan’s La Scala, Teatro Colón is an island of culture, filling an entire urban block of Buenos Aires. Viamonte Street to the north | Tucumán Street to the south | Cerrito Street to the east | Libertad Street to the west. It overlooks 9 de Julio Avenue but doesn’t manage to dominate it. Nothing would. One of the theatre’s vast pedimented elevations may face onto 9 de Julio Avenue but it’s the world’s widest road, spanning 16 lanes.

While its cornerstone was laid in 1890, the 3,500 capacity Teatro Colón is the product of a suitably eclectic array of architects, taking 18 years to complete. The original architect Francesco Tamburini was succeeded when he died by his partner Victor Meano. Mr Meano in turn was succeeded when he died by Belgian architect Jules Dormal. The theatre was extended in the 1960s by architect Mario Roberto Álvarez. Tiers of boxed seats are arranged in a horseshoe under a painted dome. And then there’s that 48 metre high stage.

It’s pretty spectacular.

Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming; Anna Pavlova and Rudolf Nureyev; the Berlin Phil and the New York Phil: Richard Strauss and Camille Saint-Saëns; all the great and the good have sung, danced, played and been played at Teatro Colón.

Dmitry Golovnia is Rusalka’s suitably tall and dashing Prince. A full figured crimson hooded María Luján Mirabelli is Jezibaba, giving it her all. The mezzosoprano is a regular performer at Teatro Colón. Ante Jerkunica is a bald skeletal Vodnik. The theatre has its own costume and scenery departments. Tonight, a penchant for the visually avant garde accompanies Julian Kuerti’s musical direction. Ana María gives a heartrending rendition of Song to the Moon, the opera’s keynote aria. “Moon in the dark heavens, your light shines far. You roam over the whole world gazing into human dwellings.”

The final curtain. Ante runs on stage to take the first bow. Ana María flamboyantly curtsies to the floor, managing to stay on the stage. The audience is ecstatic. An even bigger roar from the audience erupts for Dmitry. Bravo! Encore!

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Architecture Art People

Trevor Newton + Dartmouth House Mayfair London

The First September

The new year really starts each autumn. As the first golden leaves fall, where is it possible to see The Wallace Collection, Sir John Soane’s Museum and a swathe of Parisian hôtels particuliers in one room? In the Long Drawing Room of Marchmain Dartmouth House, on the same street where Oscar Wilde once resided in Mayfair, but only if you’re on the exclusive invitation list to the EV (Evening View). This house beautiful is not open to the public. Interior Impressions, a major exhibition of drawings by Trevor Newton is presented and curated by Anne Varick Lauder. It’s the first monographic exhibition of the accomplished artist in eight years.

New York born London based Dr Lauder, who has held curatorial positions in the J Paul Getty Museum, the Louvre and the National Portrait Gallery, announces, “We are delighted to be in the Long Drawing Room for the Private View of new drawings by the English topographical artist Trevor Newton. All 60 new works are of grand or highly individual British and European interiors from Versailles to The Ritz, to the Charleston of the Bloomsbury Group and the intimate Georgian houses of Spitalfields. It is therefore appropriate that this invitation only exhibition should take place in one of the finest private interiors in Britain.” She adds, “Interiors within interiors!” A 21st century – and for real – Charles Ryder.

Trevor studied History of Art at Cambridge, later becoming the first full time teacher of the subject at Eton. A present of The Observer’s Book of Architecture for his eighth birthday spurred a lifelong interest in buildings and their interiors. Rather than pursuing modish photorealism, he sets out to capture impressions of a place, often adding whimsical details imagined or transposed from other sources. His atmospheric renderings experiment with the interplay of light and reflection. Dense layers of mixed media – body colour, pen and ink, wash, watercolour and wax resist crayon – evoke a captivating sense of the aesthetic and nostalgic. His framing portrays a theatrical awareness of view: how the onlooker visually enters the room. There’s an enigmatic absence of people yet signs of habitation: a glass here; a magazine there. Trevor says, “My drawings are attempts to convey the emotions generated by art and architecture.” Emotional revisits. Anne considers, “It’s like he redecorates on page.”

Fellow alumnus Stephen Fry recalls, “While many of his contemporaries at Cambridge were Footlighting or rowing, Trevor seemed to spend much of his time drawing and painting. His specialities then were lavish invitations for May Week parties, illustrated menus for Club and Society dinners, posters and programmes for plays and concerts, along with a highly individual line in architectural fantasy drawn for its own sake and for the amusement of his friends. He managed to combine the frivolous and the baroque in a curious and most engaging manner: Osbert Lancaster meets Tiepolo. Trevor is still drawing and painting as passionately as ever and though the content of his work may be more serious, in style and execution it still has all the youthful energy and verve which characterised it over 30 years ago.”

Dartmouth House is something of a hôtel particulier itself. A château-worthy marble staircase and 18th century French panelling in the reception rooms add to the cunning deceit that just beyond the Louis Quinze style courtyard surely lies the Champs-Élysées. The Franglais appearance isn’t coincidental. In 1890 architect William Allright of Turner Lord knocked together two Georgian townhouses for his client, Edward Baring (of the collapsible bank fame) later Lord Revelstoke, to create a setting for his collection of French furniture and objets d’art. Ornament is prime. Dartmouth House is now the HQ of the English Speaking Union. Except for tonight. When it’s utterly-utterly Great Art Central.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury

Masterpiece Art Fair London Preview 2017 + Iván Navarro

Defining Moments

Everyone is here, every age is represented, from now to antiquity. The Oxford Dictionary needs to update its current definition of masterpiece: “a work of outstanding artistry, skill or workmanship”. Add an upper case M and it becomes, “150 galleries exhibiting works of outstanding artistry, skill and workmanship”. Or more succinctly, “a microcosm of London, New York and Maastricht society”. Tonight the red carpet’s rolled out for an augmented vernissage.

While now it’s all about Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque, there’ll be a familiar conundrum in the forthcoming days. The Ivy Chelsea Brasserie, Le Caprice, The Mount Street Deli or Scott’s Seafood and Champagne Bar? Potted brown shrimps on crispy slivers of toast at Scott’s will inevitably win most days. Feet dangling from stools below the neverending silver bar, there is nowhere better to satisfy a craving for crustacea. What about The Ivy’s HLT (halloumi, lettuce and tomato)? It’s a wrap.

Burberry is this year’s official preview partner with an exhibition The Cape Reimagined. Collector’s pieces on show are inspired by the work of Henry Moore. It’s a wrap. Cross category | low delineation | wearable sculptures | augmented visibility. Expect to see a feathery flurry of Chelsea ladies donning couture capes this autumn.

Masterpiece Presents sadly isn’t the goody bag but excitingly is an annual entrance installation project. The inaugural immersive by top Chilean artist Iván Navarro was commissioned by newcomer Paul Kasmin Gallery. Fluorescence. Incandescence. Quintessence. Definitive newness. An instantly recognisable piece from the past is displayed at Agnews of St James’s Place: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s haunting image of Proserpina, the Roman goddess, enjoying a pomegranate. Proserpina’s luscious auburn hair contrasts with the flawless pale skin of her augmented visage. A definite icon. Year on year hitting the zeitgeist while celebrating the past, Masterpiece 2017 could be defined as an “augmented vision”. It’s a wrap.

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Art Design Luxury

Drummonds Bathrooms + Chelsea Design Quarter Party London

Summertime

King’s Road Chelsea is bookended by kings of retail. At the Sloane end is Peter Jones, considered “the most civilised place in London” by Sir John Betjeman. At World’s End is Chelsea Design Quarter where Drummonds Bathrooms resigns supreme. Christopher Jenner designed the stylish showroom with its fretwork mirrored panels.

Party time. Balloons fill the freestanding baths. A metallic menagerie of dolphins, herons, zebras and a gorilla fills the showers. A pair of Egyptian cats stare each other out across a marble table. Partygoers mingle between Elisabeth Frinkish statues, topping up on Château d’Aix en Provence rosé. Prawn sticks do the rounds. Masseurs add a relaxing touch. A brass band bursts in as bubbles float through the air. A bowler hatted juggler and top hatted fire eater bemuse passengers going by on the Number 11. Bathroom reputations are made in Chelsea.

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Architecture Art Country Houses Design Luxury People

William Laffan + Abbey Leix Book Launch

Holland Days Source

Neither a Monday evening nor (apropos to an Irish shindig) drizzly weather could possibly dampen spirits. Not when it’s a party hosted by the dashing Sir David Davies and the lovely Lindy Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood last Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava the artist otherwise known as Lindy Guinness. And it’s probably worth mentioning the setting: the mid Victorian splendour of Lindy’s Holland Park townhouse city mansion.

International banker and businessman Sir David is President of the Irish Georgian Society. In between rescuing companies and country houses, Sir David leads a high profile social life (he counts Christina Onassis among his exes). Like all the greats, he once worked at MEPC. This party is all about the launch of a book on his Irish country house Abbey Leix. And Averys champers served with prawns and pea purée on silver spoons.

Two vast bay windowed reception rooms on the piano nobile of the Marchioness’s five storey house easily accommodate 100 guests. One room is hung with her paintings. Renowned Anglo American fine art specialist Charles Plante is an admirer: “Lindy Guinness brings forth abstraction in painting that mirrors the cubism of Cézanne and Picasso. Her works are irresistible.” It’s hard not to notice the staircase walls are lined with David Hockney drawings. Lucien Freud was Lindy’s brother-in-law and old chums included Francis Bacon and Duncan Grant.

The party’s getting going. Interior designer Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill is admiring the garden. Sir David’s glamorous sister Christine and her son Steffan are chatting in the hall. They’re from Ballybla near Ashford County Wicklow: turns out they’re big fans of Hunter’s Hotel. Writer Robert O’Byrne is talking to designer, artist and collector Alec Cobbe in the drawing room. “I still live in Newbridge House when I’m in Ireland,” confirms Alec. BBC3 Radio broadcaster Sean Rafferty is busy playing down his former illustrious career in Northern Ireland where he’s still a household name. “You must visit my cottage in Donegal.” A party isn’t a party without Nicky Haslam. Perennially topping Best Dressed Lists, the interior designer extraordinaire smiles, “I didn’t realise I was such an icon to you young guys!”

Fresh off the treadmill finishing the definitive guide to Russborough, a mighty tome on another Irish country house, Abbey Leix was erudite architectural historian William Laffan’s next commission. Sir David Davies bought the estate from the Earl of Snowdon’s nephew, Viscount de Vesci, for £3 million in 1995. William’s book celebrates the restoration of the house and its 1,200 acre estate.

“Thank you to Lindy for inviting us to her home,” he announces. “It’s very much a home not a museum. Someone asked me earlier was this my house. I wish it was! The only thing better than a double first is a double Guinness! Lindy is a Guinness by birth and a Guinness by marriage. And thank you to William for all the hard work. I asked him to write 100 pages and three years later he’s written hundreds of pages! The photographs are beautiful but do make sure you all read a bit of William’s great text too!”

The Knight of Glin’s widow Madam Olda Fitzgerald, mother-in-law of the actor Dominic West, is present. Sir David continues, “Desmond Fitzgerald was a great inspiration to me. Bless him, bless the Irish Georgian Society. I feel very honoured to follow in his footsteps as President. There are three other people I wish to thank without whom the restoration of Abbey Leix wouldn’t have been possible. John O’Connell, the greatest conservation architect in Ireland. Val Dillon, the leading light of the antiques trade. John Anderson, former Head Gardener of Mount Usher Gardens and Keeper of the Gardens at Windsor Great Park. I had to prise him away from the Royals!”

“Bravo!” toasts the Marchioness. She also owns Clandeboye, a late Georgian country house in Northern Ireland. Its 2,000 acre estate is famous for yoghurt production. The party is a resounding success: the launch is a sell out. A (fine 18th century) table stacked high with copies of William Laffan’s Abbey Leix book at the beginning of the evening is laid bare. Fortunately a few copies are available at Heywood Hill, Peregrine ‘Stoker’ Cavendish 12th Duke of Devonshire’s Mayfair bookshop.

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Art Design Luxury People

Lee Broom + Wedgwood

Breakfast at Harrods

Ever since he started pottering about in 1759, aged 29, Josiah Wedgwood’s surname has been synonymous with feats of clay. Just 11 years later the self proclaimed ‘Vase Maker General to the Universe’ wrote to his business partner Thomas Bentley about a “violent vase madness” afflicting the Anglo Irish aristos. Trust the West British to have a weakness for garniture. Americans have subsequently assumed the mantle.

The last time we dined at Harrods we were plonked on a banquette next to the late Lady Lewisham (aka Raine Spencer) sporting the grandest bouffant since Marie Antoinette. Her Ladyship was promoting Le Grand Atelier. Today it’s breakfast and launch. Generations come and generations go. Now it’s the time of the talented designer Lee Broom to shine. He’s a tastemaker and a man of taste (Kitty Fisher’s is one of his favourite London restaurants).

The stats are impressive. In less than a decade Lee has: released 75 furniture and lighting products under his own label | designed 40 commercial and residential interiors | created 20 products for other brands | opened two eponymous showrooms (London and New York) | won 20 awards including British Designer of the Year 2012 | received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2015. Having collaborated with iconic brands such as Christian Louboutin and Mulberry (he has a fashion degree from Central St Martin’s), it was only natural that Wedgwood would come knocking on his door. He may have products in 120 stores worldwide, but there’s only one Harrods (complete with Wedgwood concession).

In person, Lee is charming and polite. “I was inspired by Wedgwood’s historic black and white Jasperware,” he explains. “It already has a contemporary feel. I’ve taken the classical elements and silhouettes and stripped back the ornamentation for an even more modern look. I love the charcoal colour and biscuit texture of Jasperware which I’ve injected with neon high gloss details!” Priced from £7,500 to £12,000, the bowl and vases are handcrafted in Wedgwood’s Stoke-on-Trent factory. Josiah would approve.

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Art

Brighton East Sussex + One

Kind Hearts and Minarets

Categories
Architecture Art Hotels Luxury

The Merrion Hotel Dublin + Paul Henry

Paint the Town Bed

Oh yeah baby. Bring. It. On. It’s the five star hotel with a museum standard art collection. Peter van Lint’s Pool of Bethesda; Sir John Lavery’s Portrait of Eileen Lavery;  Louis le Brocquy’s Woman in White: you name it. Dublin’s finest. Then some. The one and only Merrion. Lustre between the canals. Architectural Digest raves about it. The Merrion’s frontage is unmistakably Dublin Georgian. Architectural historian Jeremy Musson once observed, “Irish Palladian houses somehow seem more perfect that many of their English contemporaries.” He was referring to country houses but the same could be said of their urban counterparts: Georgian Dublin. A vigorous typology, the pure geometry of their window to brick gaps ratio and half umbrella fanlights reads perfection. Easy to architecturally digest. Step aside inside.

Architectural historian Mark Girouard once observed, “There tends to be something impersonal about English plasterwork of the Adam period; Irish work of the same date, though often less sophisticated, has at its best a certain gaiety and freshness that has survived from the rococo period.” There is nothing staid about stuccadore Robert West’s birds and baskets made from lime and crushed marble. Below the 18th century drawing room plasterwork ceilings, a 21st century social carousel whirls in finite graceful circles. Smashing. Slip away. And so to bed. Yup, 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. Colourway inspired by a Paul Henry painting in the staircase hall. Italian Carrara marble bathroom. Got it.

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Architecture Art People

Two Temple Place London + Sussex Modernism

 Retreat and Rebellion

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“It’s a virtue of the venue,” affirms Dr Hope Wolf. “There should be friction between an exhibition and its setting.” A lecturer at the University of Sussex, Dr Wolf is the curator of a major London exhibition on Sussex Modernism. It explores two questions. Why were radical artists and writers drawn to rural Sussex in the first half of the 20th century? Why was their artistic innovation accompanied by domestic, sexual and political experimentation?

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That venue. Now owned by The Bulldog Trust, Two Temple Place is an extraordinary neo Gothic mansion nestling next to Victoria Embankment. Its tip to toe carvings and coloured glass form quite a backdrop to, say, the De La Warr Pavilion architectural model. “It’s mostly a contrast but sometimes there’s less than you think,” she points out. “The Victorian emphasis on arts and crafts is a connection that runs through to Eric Gill’s work.” What a brilliant juxtaposition in the staircase hall though: three musketeers atop newels gazing down on Salvador Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa!

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“Designed by John Loughborough Pearson to satisfy William Waldorf Astor’s fantasies, Two Temple Place is something of a dream house. But his vision is demure when compared with the explicitly sexual imagery on display.” The curator acknowledges this tension in her choice of first exhibit. It’s a marble mini coffer decorated with an eroticised nude and filled with poems by the likes of Ezra Pound. In 1914 he and five other young poets presented to the Sussex writer Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, whom Ezra called “the last of the great Victorians”. The admiration wasn’t mutual. “Wilfrid was a traditionalist. He hated the artwork and poems,” says Dr Wolf. “He kept the coffer but positioned it facing a wall to hide the nude.”

Retreat and Rebellion is a multimedia exhibition. While Dr Wolf lectures on British Modernist Literature and is a Director of the Centre for Modernist Studies, she has a background in history. “The University of Sussex takes a multidisciplinary approach to learning. This exhibition was a chance to include literature and music as well as art. There’s lots of media in the upstairs gallery but all the artists – Serge Chermayeff, László Moholy-Nagy, Henry Moore, John Piper and Eric Ravilious – actually knew each other.”

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Those questions. This exhibition argues that a rural retreat provided an escape from the metropolis to explore alternative living. It illustrates how the regional setting both amplified the artists’ and writers’ contrary energies and facilitated their attempts to live and represent the world differently.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Luxury

SPPARC Architecture + The Music Box Southwark London

White Cube

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Missed it, impossible. An enigmatic form; a legible plan. Classical with precedence; original with credence. Absence of colour; presence of brilliance. Monochromatic look; colourful character. Box clever; clever box. The morphemes of negative space; the polyphemes of architectonic afterimage. Lines of beauty; the unlocked grid. Complexity; contradiction. Cool design; hot property. If architecture is frozen music, The Music Box is a timely sculpture in ice. Above the arches; above the commuter belt; above the parapet; above the radar; above the norm. Blue sky thinking. Right side of the tracks. Rooms with a view. A place for living; a space for learning. Thinking outside the (Miesian) box, Trevor Morriss, Principal of SPPARC Architecture, is a bright young(ish) thing, a rising star in the architectural firmament that is London. The sky’s not the limit. The Music Box is his latest meteor to strike across the galaxy. Taylor Wimpey Central London’s mixed use scheme of 55 apartments suspended over a music college will inspire generations to come. List it, imaginably.

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“The scheme is in two parts: the upper element adopts the vertical proportions of the golden section. A cube shaped residential building is delicately positioned over a 15 metre high base with a large glazed section, providing both prominence onto the street and glimpses into the music college. This purity of form is reflected in the simplicity of the external surfaces. The strong base is faced with a white ceramic brick interrupted by a textured three dimensional band representing rhythm which accords with the positioning of the rectilinear punched apertures. But it is the erosion of this cubic form that truly defines the building. A ‘missing’ street corner acknowledges the strong horizontality of the adjacent railway line, in parallel creating a longitudinal distinction between the music college and apartments. The upper residential storeys are distinguished by a hierarchical layer of vertical solar spines intersecting glazed fabric. The top of The Music Box is a continuous glazed kerb regularly punctuated by the extension of the solar spines: a profile reminiscent of a hammer and piano keys.”

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Architecture Art Design Luxury People

Zaha Hadid Design + Porcelanosa Vitae

Water Feat

Anne Davey Orr & Zaha Hadid's Red Metropolis © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The art and architecture worlds were shocked by the death of Pritzker Prize winner Dame Zaha Hadid last Easter. Age 65 is young to die and even more so for an architect. That’s the age when many of the greats’ careers are really taking off. The Zaha Hadid Design Studio in Clerkenwell, that well of London overflowing with creative, showcases her designs from paintings to shoes to sculptures to maquettes. And, as it transpires, bathrooms. Porcelanosa, the super high end bathroom company handily next door, has taken over the basement display space.

Zaha Hadid Design Gallery © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s a chance to see her last work before the final curtain fell on Zaha’s glorious career as the world’s best female architect. A career which, ironically, only got going full steam in the UK following the brouhaha over the disastrous design competition for Cardiff Bay Opera House. Cardiff’s loss; rest of the UK’s gain. London’s slick Olympics Aquatic Centre and Serpentine Sackler Gallery would follow. As would a flow of high profile international projects. What a curriculum vitae! Masterpiece Fair 2016 posthumously commemorated her non architecture talents. Porcelanosa is celebrating the future of the polymath’s legacy: bathroom architecture. Arbor vitae must keep growing. Zaha’s professional confidant Patrik Schumacher has stepped up to run the architecture practice.

Zaha Hadid Clerkenwell © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley_edited-1

Vitae is a collection of handcrafted ceramic pieces created by Zaha Hadid Design for Porcelanosa’s specialist bathroom company Noken. Maha Kutay, Director of Zaha Hadid Design, at the design launch: “Being an architectural practice and working on hospitality and residential projects, it was only natural for us to look at developing a bathroom range to complete our interiors. The design has been informed by a fluid language connecting each piece visually to create a wholesome experience.”

Porcelanosa Vitae Bath Zaha Hadid © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Porcelanosa Vitae Basin Zaha Hadid © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The Lebanon born architect joined the practice straight from university. Initially involved in architectural projects, her career veered into design. “I’ve worked on the Roca showroom in London, various exhibition and fair stands such as Design Miami and Design Miami Basel, and products such as the Citco marble collection.” Zaha had a fearsome reputation but Maha says working for her was rewarding. “She kept you on your toes. She knew exactly your potential and pushed you to achieve this.”

Porcelanosa Vitae Sanitaryware Zaha Hadid © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

High tech advancements haven’t watered down the cutting non edged design of Vitae. Quite the reverse. Zaha’s practice has always been at the forefront of the interface between architecture, landscape, geology and importantly, technology. Computer systems enabled her early designs to be executed. Technology had to catch up with Zaha, not the other way round. “Zaha Hadid’s vision redefined architecture for the 21st century, capturing imaginations across the globe. Her legacy endures within the DNA of the design studio she created.” Magistra vitae.

City of Towers Zaha Hadid © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Art Country Houses

Fronteira Palace Gardens Lisbon + The Black Swan

The Last Battle You’re Free

Fronteira Palace and Gardens Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Nestled in the Monsanto Hills, on the city’s edge, glimpses of modernity far below, sits the Fronteira Palace. The seat of the Marquesses of Fronteira, it is Portugal’s premier example of a 17th century Italianate palace and gardens. A tapestry of sunburnt red walls, yellowed white trimmings, cerulean blue screens and enigmatically black loggias elevates the elevations from architecture to art. This being Lisbon, tiles are aplenty too. Or azulejos as they’re locally named, lifting the prosaic to the mosaic. Founder Dom João de Mascarenhas, 2nd Count of Torre and 1st Marquess of Fronteira, was clearly good with colour.

Fronteira Palace and Lake Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

‘The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan’

Fronteira Palace Garden Front Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Following the 1755 earthquake which smashed up the family’s city centre home, the former hunting lodge was upgraded to palace. At this time, the 5th Marquess Dom José Luis de Mascarenhas added a family wing perpendicular to the gated entrance. And that was that. And this is now. If architecture is frozen music, then Fronteira Palace is frozen history. But there are bills to be paid. “Very few family owned historic houses in Lisbon are open to the public,” says the guide. “The main rooms are hired out as they are for weddings. We don’t clear the furniture away. The family wing is completely private.”

Fronteira Palace Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Fronteira Palace Terrace Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

‘And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle’

Fronteira Palace Balustrade Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The gardens are the stuff of Capability Brown nightmares. A maximalist dream of terraces and terracotta, clipped bushes and stone tushes, box hedging and bucks’ antlers, urns and turns, airs and parterres. In their midst, unbeknownst to the casual wanderer, a red eyed red beaked black swan, a magnificent beast, a silent risk, patrols his territory: the lake and then some. “He attacks people!” warns the guide. This palace is now the black swan’s hunting lodge. The hunted has become the hunter. Ha! An epistemological fourth quadrant – this one has legs.

The Black Swan of Fronteira Palace Lisbon © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Categories
Architecture Art Restaurants

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum + Café Lisbon

The Shock of the Old and the New

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum Lisbon Exterior © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s the Van Loon Museum of Lisbon: historic interiors with contemporary interventions. A strictly guarded circuit ensures visitors view all three floors, six centuries, 27 galleries and 2,000 objects in a mannerly fashion. “To the left!” “Up the stairs!” Turn right!” “Down the corridor!” Like another of its cultural continental cousins, the Baccarat Museum, the Medeiros e Almeida House Museum fills a Parisian (style) townhouse. Originally built for a lawyer in 1896, the house was bought by António Medeiros e Almeida 47 years later.

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum Lisbon Interior © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum Lisbon Bust © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Successful businessman António and his wife Margarida emerged in the mid 20th century as great European collectors. On a quest for beauty, the glamorous pair filled their home with fine and decorative works of art. Following Margarida’s death in 1970, and with no children, he established a foundation to keep the eclectic collection intact. António added an extension covering the garden to accommodate yet more art. He died aged 90 in 1986 and at the turn of the 21st century his wish came true. The Medeiros e Almeida House Museum was opened to the public.

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum Lisbon Bedroom © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

A glass fronted café spills out onto a courtyard between the old and new wings: a leafy oasis in the business district of Barata Salgueiro. Perfect for whiling away the daylight hours over a frothy coffee (€1.50) and savoury twiglets (grátis). Post tour, of course. A magnet on the café’s fridge door spells ‘Food with Art’. Always back a winning formula.

Medeiros e Almeida House Museum Lisbon Bed © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Design Luxury People

Wallace Chan + Rise of Heart

Drill Thrill

Wallace Chan Masterpiece Fair 2016 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Dream | Light | Water. World renowned Chinese born Hong Kong based London visiting Masterpiece exhibiting jewellery creator and artist extraordinaire Wallace Chan talks exclusively to Lavender’s Blue about nature, gemstones and the dentist. “When I see a flower fade it makes me feel sad. I want to capture the moment before that happens,” he says, dwarfed by the 2.2 metre high Rise of Heart next to him. Wallace informs us this fuchsia hued extravaganza is of honed titanium butterflies encircling a flower of amethysts, citrines and 1,000 rubies. “Do flowers attract butterflies or is it the other way round? I wonder about that relationship.” Wallace reveals, “I’m always very curious! I like to study the sky and earth, to capture the universe in my works. The universe is my teacher!” Yes, but what about the dentist? “I remember visiting the dentist when I was 12. I thought the drill could be used in the creation of jewellery. So, a visit to the dentist is a piece of memory!” And, it transpires, a lesson in craftsmanship. Today, Wallace Chan uses a modified dentist drill to carve designs in gemstones for his exhibition pieces.

Wallace Chan Jeweller © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Wallace Chan Artist © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Wallace Chan Masterpiece London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

Masterpiece Art Fair London Preview 2016 + London Art Week

Here Come The Men in Red Coats 

Ferrari 250 GTO 1963 Masterpiece Fair 2016 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Almost 75 percent of Kensington and Chelsea is covered by conservation areas,” Rock Feilding-Mellen duly told us over dinner at Clarke’s Restaurant on Kensington Church Street. He’s Deputy Leader of the Borough. “We’re very very proud of our built environment and the legacy we have inherited. The Royal Borough is held in high esteem here and around the world.” Sir Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital Chelsea is one of the jewels in the prestigious Borough’s tiara. It’s fast becoming as renowned for an annual temporary replica in its grounds as the original 17th century quadrangular forerunner.

Another year, another masterpiece. Another year, another Masterpiece. Only in its seventh year, whatever did we do before this gaping lacuna in the social calendar was filled? Mind you, the Victorians managed just one Great Exhibition. It’s time to mingle with the well addressed sort of people who live in a house with no number (we’ll allow Number One London or at a push One Kensington Gardens as exceptions). Hey big spenders: there are no pockets in shrouds. Superprimers at play. From the Occident to the Orient, Venice to Little Venice, Dalston Cumbria to Dalston Dalston, the Gael to the Pale, Sally Gap to Sally Park or Sallynoggin, Masterpiece is like living between inverted commas. Among this year’s prestigious sponsors are Sir John Soane’s Museum and The Wallace Collection. That familiar conundrum: Scott’s or Le Caprice? Best doing both. Home of tofu foam Sinabro would approve. It’s not like we’ve hit the skids ourselves, as they say. The choice of champagne is even less of a dilemma: it’s Claridge’s favourite Perrier-Jouët on (gold) tap.

The Bantry House Siena Marble Tables, each spanning two metres, take pride of place at Ronald Phillips. This princely pair was purchased by the 2nd Earl of Bantry in the 1820s for the tapestry crammed entrance hall of his West Cork country house. The black marble supporting columns retain the original paint used to simulate the Siena marble tops. Thomas Lange of Ronald Phillips describes Siena marble as “the Rolls Royce of marbles”. Dating from George III times, they are priced £100,000 plus. Another Anglo Irish masterpiece is The Hamilton Tray. Commissioned by the 1st Marquess of Abercorn, this priceless piece of silver dates from 1791.

Symmetry and the art of the perpendicular abound in the Masterpiece salons (displays being much too modest a term). Lady Rosemary “I hate furniture on the slant” Spencer-Churchill would approve. Tinged with temporality, touched by ephemerality, the rooms are nonetheless paragons of authenticity. Exhibitors’ choice of wall covering is all defining. At Wallace Chan, velvety black is not so much a negation as a celebration of the totality of all colours. The kaleidoscopic crystallinity of a heist’s worth of gems is a welcome foil to the solidity of the backdrop. Jewellery designer and artist Wallace tells us, “I am always very curious. I like to study the sky and the earth. I seek to capture the emotions of the universe in my works.” Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows by Henry Holiday cast an atmospheric rainbow over Sinai and Sons. Such a whirl of interiors – Min Hogg would approve. Purveyors of Exquisite Mind Bombs, Quiet Storm, add to the glamour. An exchange of fabulosity with Linda Oliver occurs. Moving on…

Countess Litta Detail @ Stair Sainty Masterpiece Fair 2016 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

This year’s theme of women is encapsulated by a masterpiece painted by a female of a female courtesy of Stair Sainty Gallery. “Why Vigée Le Brun is regarded as one of the finest and most gifted of all c18th female portrait artists” the gallery succinctly tweeted. Stair Sainty do though deservedly devote 3,290 words on their website to Louise Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s oil portrait of Yekaterina Vassilievna Skavronskaia (Countess Litta to you), a member of the Russian Court. A favourite of nobility and royalty, Madame Lebrun was tasked with softening the French Queen Marie Antoinette’s image through a series of family portraits. Despite the artist’s outstanding talent, this PR attempt was about as successful as Edina Monsoon recruiting Kate Moss (incidentally the model pops up in Chris Levine’s laser tryptych She’s Light priced £25,000) as a client in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. The premiere clashes with the Masterpiece Preview but we’ll stick to one red carpet at a time…

The late great Zaha Hadid, a regular visitor up to last year at Masterpiece, is now the subject of a commemorative salon. Interior designer Francis Sultana has curated an exhibition revealing Zaha wasn’t just the world’s greatest female architect – she was a dab hand at painting, jewellery and crockery design. Undisputed queen of Suprematism, curvature is her signature whatever the scale. Francis remarks, “Zaha never really believed in straight lines as such.” Across the boulevard, a moving arrangement by the Factum Foundation centred round a life-size crucifix is a reminder amidst this earthly wealth and glamour of the importance of faith and preservation. “Art is intention, not materials,” believes Adam Lowe of the Factum Foundation.

Montaged onto a bright blue sky, it’s time the red and white multidimensional Masterpiece marquee was designated as a listed building. Seasonal of course. Talking of the (changing) Season, whatever next? Proms in Peckham? Disney at Montalto? We’ll settle for tomorrow afternoon’s London Art Week Preview, a jolly round the galleries of St James’s with The Wallace Collection’s architect John O’Connell.