Contemporary Interior Design

• Posted on 24th April 2012 by Nicola Holden

I had a wonderful Easter break in Istanbul this year. It is a city I have long wanted to visit, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. There was fabulous inspiration around every corner, beautiful buildings, wonderful food, and with spring around the corner it was a city in full bloom.

Istanbul is a vast, sprawling metropolis that 15 million people call home, and is a magnet to tourists from every corner or the world. I have never heard so many different languages spoken in one place! Unlike Abu Dhabi (which I visited last year), it is also a city full of history, from the Byzantines to the Ottomans, and under Roman control in between, and much of ancient Constantinople’s building stock remains, including palaces, churches and cisterns.

I was awed by every church and mosque that I visited, but the building that held my attentions for the most amount of time was the Topkapi Palace. Described in the Lonely Planet as an ‘… opulent palace complex [that] is the subject of more colourful stories than most of the world’s royal residences put together … [and] was home to Selim the Sot, who drowned after drinking too much champagne …’, I knew that a visit was required.

The palace was built in 1453 by Mehmet the Conqueror, and was occupied by subsequent sultans until the 19th century. It is built around a basic four-courtyard plan, designed to seclude the monarch from the people. The first court was open to everyone, the second court only to people on imperial business, and the third and fourth courts only to the imperial family, VIPs and palace staff.

Here are some of the design features that caught my eye:

I was just wowed by the beauty and intricacy of these ceilings, and my head is brimming with ideas to transform these designs onto other furnishings.

I loved these small chambers and the mix of design elements that they bring together – elaborate rugs, Iznik tiles, stained glass windows, embellished ceilings and inlaid doors.

Everywhere you turned there were Iznik tiles – all different designs worked together into a mind blowing whole. Simply stunning! In fact, I fell in love with these tiles so much that my darling BF bought me eight for my birthday, which I plan to inlay into a piece of furniture some day.

Nothing had slipped the attention of these early designers. Every element in this palace was ‘designed’ – from the cobbled, colonnaded verandas to the arched windows and decorated eaves, right down to the carved and mother-of-pearl inlaid doors. I just loved it all, and after an exhausting but exhilarating five hours I dragged myself away from this wonderful palace. Truly inspiring!

Have you been to Istanbul? What was your favourite bit?

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
St. Francis of Assisi

All images © Nicola Holden.

• Posted in Architecture, Interior Design, Museums, Travel, Tupkapi Palace | 12 Comments

• Posted on 11th November 2010 by Nicola Holden

In the mid to late 1700’s, when most other architects were partaking in the Grand Tour of Europe, and bringing back Neo-Classical architecture to England, the politician, writer and collector Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was creating his summer villa in the Gothic revival style!

Strawberry Hill is indeed a ‘little Gothic castle’, created to provide a theatrical experience for visitors.  And that it certainly does.  Although Strawberry Hill has re-opened to the public, its restoration is not quite complete, and there are still rooms that are not yet open for exploring.

My visit to Strawberry Hill started in the sm gloomy hall which is lit from above by two small windows, and by a Gothic lantern of tin japanned. On each corner of the balustrade is an antelope holding a shield.

Going up two flights of stairs takes you into the Library – a large room whose walls are almost entirely covered in pierced work Gothic arch bookshelves.  Unfortunately all of the books, along with most of Walpole’s other possessions, were sold in the great sale of 1842, and so one can only image this room full of books.  Other than the bookshelves there is an ornate chimney piece, a large window displaying fine painted glass, and of course the door into this room.  As you walk round Strawberry Hill it becomes apparent that Walpole ‘borrowed’ design from lots of different sources.  The design of the bookshelves is taken from a side door case to the choir in Dugdale’s St Paul’s.  The chimney piece design is a combination from the tomb of John of Eltham Earl of Cornwall, in Westminster Abbey, and the stonework from that of Thomas Duke of Clarence, at Canterbury.  The Library is also home to a grandly painted ceiling reflecting Walpole’s coat of arms, his ancestors and his links to the crusaders.

Back on the first floor, one of my favourite rooms is the Holbein Chamber – so named because it used to display Walpole’s collection of copies of Holbein drawings.  This room is painted a regal purple, and is first glimpsed through the pierced arches of a screen inspired by the gates of the choir at Rouen.  The walls contrast beautifully with the magnificent white ceiling, taken from the Queen’s dressing-room at Windsor, and the chimney piece, inspired by the tomb of Archbishop Warham at Canterbury.

From there you pass through the Trunk Ceiled Passage, known as ‘the dusky corridor’ as it is lit only by a sky-light window at the end of the passage. The light streaming through an open doorway on the left draws you forward through this space, and into the Gallery.

The Gallery is a truly magnificent room 17m long, 4m wide and 5m high.  The walls are hung with a bold crimson Norwich damask, and the room is lavishly gilded.  This Gallery was the first of Walpole’s great state rooms, and at the time would have been filled with paintings and other works of art.  Once again Walpole has taken inspiration for a variety of sources – the ceiling from one of the side aisles of Henry VIIth chapel at Westminster Abbey, the great door copied from the north door Saint Alban’s, and the side with the recesses from the tomb of Archbishop Bourchier at Canterbury.

From the Gallery you enter the Round Drawing Room, again hung with crimson Norwich damask.  After the grandeur of the Gallery, this room is fairly simple, but still boasts painted glass windows, a beautiful chimney-piece of white marble inlaid with scagliuola and a ceiling inspired from a round window in old Saint Paul’s with frieze designed by Robert Adams (who I wrote about in a previous blog).

The Great Parlour, the Tribune, the Great North Bedchamber and the Beauclerc Closet are still not open to the public, although I did manage to snatch a quick peek of the Tribune with its gilt-embellished ceiling leading up to a yellow glass star inspired by the chapter-house at York.

Horace Walpole has certainly done a wonderful job at pulling together all of the different elements of design that he admired, and combining them to form this magnificent Gothic castle that is Strawberry Hill.  His building evolved over time, with no fixed plan from the beginning, and features added as Walpole saw fit. As the man himself said, ‘I begin to be ashamed of my own magnificence.’!

I would definitely recommend a visit, although I would suggest that you wait until the summer of 2011 to ensure that you are not picking your way around the restoration works.

“Men are often capable of greater things than they perform – They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.”
Horace Walpole

• Posted in Architecture, History, Interior Design, Museums | Comments Off

• Posted on 01st November 2010 by Nicola Holden

Just recently I have had a desperate urge to escape the bricks and mortar that is London, and venture forth into the countryside. The seasons’ changing seems to be passing me by in this city, and I needed to get out. So, whilst my partner was hurtling around a dirt track in a rally car on Saturday, I was exploring the Leicestershire countryside, and soaking up a beautiful autumn day full of wonderful autumn colours!

My goal was Kirby Hall, now managed by English Heritage. Kirby Hall was built in the 17th Century and bought by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I in the hope that the queen would pay a visit. Sadly, she never did visit, and Hatton died deeply in debt.

Kirby Hall – 1829

Although much of this vast mansion is now semi-ruined and roof-less, it is still clear that the design style of this great Elizabethan country house was based on the classical French architectural of the period, full of exceptional, richly carved decoration.

The Great Hall and state rooms, including the Billiard Room, remain intact, and have been refitted and redecorated to authentic 17th and 18th century specifications. It was wonderful to stand in these rooms and imagine the grandeur with which they would have been furnished originally.

Later, towards the end of the 17th century, Sir Christopher Hatton, the fourth, added the ornate gardens – described as ‘ye finest garden in England’ in the late 17th century. They are now partly restored and laid out in an elaborate ‘cutwork’ design complete with statues, urns and peacocks!

Kirby Hall may no longer be what it once was, but its beauty remains with us to this day.

“Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten”
Gucci family motto

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• Posted on 31st August 2010 by Nicola Holden

Seen from the outside, Leighton House Museum looks like a fairly ordinary, red Victorian house – built using red Suffolk bricks with Caen Stone dressings in a restrained classical style. But, as soon as you step through the front door you are transported to somewhere entirely different!

Leighton House was home to Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), one of the most famous British artists of the nineteenth century. He was President of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was ennobled in 1896, just before his death, becoming Frederic, Lord Leighton, Baron of Stretton – the only British artist to have been awarded this honour.

His home was designed by George Aitchison, and embellished to create a private palace of art. Now a museum, it was reopened in Apr 2010 after a £1.6 million refurbishment which has uncovered and restored many of the decorative schemes and features of the house. The interior of the house is a work of art in itself, with every inch decorated with classical treasures of artistic traditions from all over the world, as well as his own works and those of his contemporaries.

The first room you enter is the ‘Staircase Hall’, and then the ‘Narcissus Hall’, both spaces richly decorated with gilded ceilings and walls lined with peacock blue tiles by the ceramic artist William De Morgan.

These rooms lead to the most striking part of the house the opulent ‘Arab Hall’, a room dedicated for Leighton’s priceless collection of Middle Eastern art, including over a thousand Islamic tiles, many decorated with elaborate calligraphy, and brought back from Damascus in Syria as well as Iran, Southern Russia and Turkey. The carved wooden lattice-work windows are from Cairo. There are also Victoria elements in the stone columns and the mosaic frieze designed by Walter Crane. With its elaborately decorated domed ceiling and sunken fountain, this interior evokes a compelling vision of the Orient.

The ‘Drawing Room’ is a more sedate room, with brown patterned wallpaper to match the browns within the landscapes of four large painted panels by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. It is, however, crowned with a garish glass Victorian chandelier. According to lighting designers Sutton Vane Associates’, who have recreated the lighting conditions of 1896, “Electric lighting was Victorian bling. Far from hiding the lamps, Leighton wanted to show off this wonderful new technology”

The ‘Dining Room’ is an intensely red room with flock wallpaper and scarlet painted floorboards draped in woven rugs. The red acts as a backdrop for Leighton’s collection of precious ceramics, mostly from the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Upstairs is the ‘Silk Room’, named for its green silk wall-covering on which he displays some of his picture collection. The domed glass ceiling here has good light qualities for showing off these works, both old and new.

Leighton’s studio was the central feature of his home, and where he would have spent most of his time. This large room is flooded with light from a great north-facing window, and displays yet more art various members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and by Leighton himself, including a copy of what is considered to be Leighton’s magnum opus, ‘Flaming June’, painted in 1895.

“Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Posted in Architecture, Art, Culture, History, Interior Design, Museums, Travel | 2 Comments

• Posted on 04th June 2010 by Nicola Holden

On bank holiday Monday I headed down to Brighton and the coast for the day – an urge to be beside the sea! I love Brighton for many reasons, but my favourite has to be the Royal Pavilion!

The Royal Pavilion was the play house of the Prince Regent (later King George IV). The exterior of the building is lovely enough – designed by the architect John Nash between 1815 and 1822. Its style is inspired by Indian architecture. Unfortunately the sun wasn’t lighting this building to its most spectacular, but here are a few pictures I snapped.

Inside, however, this building is magnificent. The interiors are decorated in the Chinese style. Unfortunately photography is prohibited inside the Pavilion, and so I was one frustrated person looking around. There is so much detail to photograph there, and so much inspiration for me to apply to my interiors!

The first room you enter is the Long Gallery – a reception room for King George’s famous dinner parties. It is richly furnished with a mixture of real and imitation bamboo, and the walls are painted with Chinoiserie compositions.

You are then led into the Banqueting Room, which is one of the most magnificent interiors in the Royal Pavilion. The interior of the Banqueting Room was designed with a shallow dome and canopies to the north and south. The walls were hung with large canvases painted with Chinese domestic scenes. In the centre of the room is a long table which seats around 30 guests. Above this hangs a magnificent chandelier, held in the claws of a silvered dragon and suspended from the apex of the ceiling. This chandelier in nine metres in height and weighs one ton!

Banqueting Room

Other than food, one of George IV’s great passions was music, and this is reflected in the lavishly decorated Music Room. In this extraordinary interior, lit by nine lotus-shaped chandeliers, the King’s own band entertained guests with selections from Handel or Italian opera. The walls are covered in rich red and gold wall paintings, and the domed ceiling is decorated with 26,000 gilded cockleshells.

Music Room

These images of the interior of the Pavilion do not come anywhere close to representing the ‘wow’ factor as you enter these rooms. And there is more – the opulent Saloon, the refined and dignified Galleries, the Great Kitchen (where menus of up to 60 dishes were prepared), and the King’s Apartments. I would definitely recommend a visit to the Royal Pavilion if you can!

• Posted in Architecture, Culture, History, Interior Design, Museums | 1 Comment

• Posted on 15th February 2010 by Nicola Holden

On Saturday I felt the need for to delve into some art and culture, and so decided to visit Sir John Soane’s Museum, which is somewhere I should have visited ages ago!

Sir John Soane, (1753–1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. His architectural works are distinguished by their clean lines, decisive detailing, careful proportions and skilful use of light sources.  His best-known work is the Bank of England.  The Sir John Soane’s museum is located in Soane’s original house at 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, close to Holborn tube station.  Soane established the house as a Museum by means of an Act of Parliament in the conviction that ‘the study of classical principles of design should be the foundation of an architectural student’s education’.

Soane bought the house in 1792, and used it as his home and library, but also for the entertaining of potential clients.  He eventually extended the house into two neighbouring houses to enable him to experiment with different architectural ideas, and also to house his growing collection of antiquities and architectural salvage, many of which he acquired on his ‘grand tour’ of Europe.

His aim was to display his collection so as to educate and inspire ‘Amateurs and Students in Painting, Architecture and Sculpture’.  Some of the objects in Soane’s collection include the sarcophagus of the Egyptian King Seti I (carved out of a single piece of Egyptian alabaster), Roman bronzes from Pompeii, paintings by Canaletto, Hogarth and Turner and an ivory table and chair set of late 18th century origin, believed to have been seized from Tipu Sultan by the East India Company.  The small Picture Room has a total of more than one hundred pictures, additional wall space being provided by the use of hinged screens.  There are also 7,000 books and 30,000 drawings.

His interior designs include the ingenious use of mirrors to expand the apparent space.  In the small breakfast parlour, Soane has used over 100 pieces of mirror, together with stained glass windows in skylights, to create ‘a succession of those fanciful effects which constitute the poetry of architecture’.

This museum is well worth a visit!

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