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CLASSIC DESIGN FOR CONTEMPORARY INTERIORS

With contributions by Stephen Calloway, Jean Gomm, Tim Gosling and Jürgen Huber

Foreword by Tim Knox, Director, Sir ’s Museum,

Photography by Ray Main

PRESTEL MUNICH BERLIN LONDON NEW YORK GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 4 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 5 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 6 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 7 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 8 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 9 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 10 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 21.07.2009 12:23 Uhr Seite 11

Foreword 13 1 The Classical Tradition 14 2 Space, Scale and Light 24 3 Commissioning 42 4

The Art and Craft of Luxury marquetry · mirror and glass · vellum · shagreen · leather lacquer · gilding · eglomise · inlays · accessories 52 5

The Art of Technology 170 6 Contemporary Design in Classic Interiors 192

Keepers of the Flame: Expert Craftsmen 216

Contributors 217

Selected Bibliography 218

Acknowledgements and Photo Credits 220

Index 221 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 12 GOSLING_pp01-13.v2:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:57 Uhr Seite 13

Foreword

direct link between today’s designers and craftsmen and their Acounterparts in the past is an important one. The great buildings, interiors and furnishings that delight us today only do so because of the exceptional vision and skill of many extraordinary people – patrons, arbiters of taste, artists and craftsmen. It is heartening to see how many of the ideas of the past still resonate in the architecture and design of today. Gosling as a company still aspires to the level of detail and quality that characterises the masters of the past. It maintains that vital dialogue, reviving in the luxurious houses, offices and hotels that feature in this beautiful book the spirit, stylishness and attention to detail that so distinguishes the work of , and Thomas Hope. Tim Gosling has created a living museum at his design studio and home, enabling his discriminating clients to see and understand why historical rules, materials and proportions matter – very much continuing the dialogue that Sir John Soane had with his clients, and which governed the creation of the world-renowned museum I now curate in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

tim knox, Director, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London

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The Classical Tradition GOSLING_ch1pp14-23:Layout 3 09.07.2009 11:51 Uhr Seite 16

or those attuned to the glories of the into elegant columns of carefully cut stone, written probably around 15 bce and constitute Fpast and full of the desire to create its crossbeams into lintel and architrave, the the only complete architectural treatise to beautiful things themselves, the classical original elements of its construction and have come down to us from ancient times. tradition inherited from the civilisations of fixings recalled symbolically in an elaborate ’s writings revealed for the first time ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome offers a system of ornamental details and flourishes – a comprehensive picture of the building fathomless source of instruction and the architectural Orders. methods of the ancients and evidence of inspiration. This book examines this legacy As a codification of scale and their stylistic concerns; not surprisingly this to reveal the way in which a passionate love proportion, ornament and enrichment – or, precious text sparked the liveliest interest of the classical architectural tradition has curiously, when ornament and enrichment among scholars, artists and architectural inspired and guided the creative career of were not required, as an almost abstract set practitioners when first made public in 1414. a contemporary designer of furniture and of principles – the Orders held everything In Italian scholarly circles Vitruvius interiors, Tim Gosling. together, providing sets of rules that whilst became essential reading and for two The connection between building, the seeming absolute also remained endlessly centuries his works were digested, elaborated creation of interior spaces and the making adaptable. upon and imitated by a sequence of academic of furniture has from the most ancient times In tracing the history of the transmission writers and architectural theorists. Daniel been intimate. One key to all this has been of the classical tradition down to our own Barbaro’s translation of Vitruvius’s original an understanding of the use of wood and era, perhaps the single most significant Latin text, published in Venice in 1556 with the appreciation of its strengths and beauties episode was the rediscovery by the Florentine extensive commentaries and illustrations by as a material for builders and makers. The Poggio Bracciolini, one of the most the talented young draughtsman and architect form of Greek temples and great civic indefatigable and erudite classicists of the , became for their generation edifices has been traced to the simple type early , of the hitherto lost works the standard edition. Another early of the ‘primitive hut’, its crude timber of the Roman architect Vitruvius. Marcus ‘Vitruvian’, Leon Battista Alberti, in his De uprights gradually transformed over time Vitruvius Pollio’s Ten Books on Architecture were re aedificatoria was among the first to claim for

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architecture a status as high as that of the makers in an era in which new kinds of The history of the classical tradition in established learned disciplines of rhetoric private domestic spaces such as the studiolo England is essentially one of successive waves and poetry and those with which it shared and novel forms of furniture were developing of influence reaching our shores. It was early a more obvious connection: geometry and rapidly. in the sixteenth century during the reign of music. Palladio’s own treatise I Quattro Libri Henry VIII, who aspired above all to In an intellectual arena which delighted dell’Architettura of 1570 had, with a somewhat compete with his rival the French king in complex and often highly speculative lighter touch, disseminated his theories of François I as a European Renaissance prince, thought patterns, architectural theories proportion and his love of geometrically that new Italian architectural forms and concerning proportion came to be interwoven complex but largely plain and unadorned motifs first began to appear. Seen at first in with more abstract notions of musical, linear forms far and wide. Whilst Palladio himself buildings and other fashionable artefacts and spatial harmony based on the subtle built only relatively small numbers of associated with court circles, the ‘Romane’ division of the Golden Section. Influenced buildings in Venice and around Vicenza, his fashion spread as the century progressed to by the speculations concerning the human book became a cornerstone of architectural the houses of aristocratic builders and even, form of anatomists and the more thoughtful thinking for many years, and buildings in more often than not barbarously or scientifically minded artists, such as what came to be called the Palladian style misunderstood, to the carved oak furniture Leonardo, , in his L’Idea spread as far afield as Russia and the of stout Elizabethan gentlemen and yeomen della Architettura universale of 1615, elaborated a Americas. In England in the early farmers. uniform system of mathematical ratios and eighteenth century, during a period of It is probably fair to say that the first visual harmonies founded upon the divine unprecedented prosperity and confident British architect and designer fully to geometry of the ideal human figure. Whilst expansion, Palladianism became the appreciate and understand the new Italian intended to be applied to the grandest of unchallenged architectural idiom of the architecture, and to assimilate its ideas and its architectural projects, such theories also dominant aristocratic, political and details sufficiently to build convincingly in carried clear implications for designers and landowning classes. the new style was Inigo Jones (1573–1652).

8 Vincenzo Scamozzi, 7 Inigo Jones, Elevation L’Idea della Architettura for the penultimate design universale, 1615, Part I, for the Banqueting House, Book I. The ideal , London, proportions of the human 1619‒22. body and basic geometric shapes.

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Jones both travelled to Italy seeing buildings studied Vitruvius as a classical text, but and the painter-turned-architect William at first hand and assiduously studied the it was his visits to Paris and Rome that Kent proved to be one of the greatest works of Serlio and other more recent texts. opened his eyes to the new European baroque collaborations between a patron of vision He worked for James I, for whom he created architecture. Gosling cites Wren’s celebrated and a designer of genius. Burlington’s grand the first great building in the true classical library at Trinity College, , as well villa at Chiswick proclaimed his architectural style in England, the Banqueting House, his as numerous details in his London churches allegiances by placing statues of Palladio masterpiece of 1619–22, as well as the Queen’s as seminal influences. If Wren’s architecture and Inigo Jones to the right and left of the House at . It is significant that and design was essentially cerebral, his two portico. Internally, the villa – a pleasure Jones was not only an architect but also, and closest associates, Nicholas Hawksmoor, his pavilion on the grandest scale, which was very much in the Renaissance manner, a sometime assistant and collaborator, and John never intended to be lived in – revealed the versatile designer of furniture, interiors and Vanbrugh both introduced new elements of sophistication with which Kent could create also settings and costumes for and heady baroque theatricality into English furniture with an architectural character, other court entertainments. For this reason, architecture. In Hawksmoor’s case it is and place it within interior schemes in in the breadth of his vision, he remains a revealed most clearly in his daring use of which all the elements were integrated to model for designers today. As Tim Gosling towers to dramatise church or college an unprecedented degree. This ability to says ‘our story starts here’. structures; in Vanbrugh it is to be seen and marry grandiose effect and attention to small Throughout the rest of the seventeenth relished most in the extraordinarily powerful detail continually delights the eye in Kent’s century in England, the majority of massing of the blocks of his great country finest interior ensembles such as those of architectural practitioners remained amateurs. houses, Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard or Houghton, and equally Even Sir and Sir John with their unforgettable sky-lines of in individual pieces of furniture such Vanbrugh, the greatest of these ‘learned and bristling obelisks and vases. as a bookcase or chair, a candle stand or ingenious gentlemen’ were essentially self- The fruitful association at this time a simple plinth on which to display a taught. Wren, as an Oxford academic, had of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington Grand Tour treasure.

8 Christopher Wren, The Wren library at Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1676‒86.

7 A bay of the Wren library showing reading tables and reading stand attributed to Christopher Wren.

77 A sketch design of the reading tables and reading stand attributed to Christopher Wren.

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The major trend of the later eighteenth- own designs, the celebrated Gentleman and tea-tables and ladies’ sewing-tables. John century architectural confraternity was Cabinet-Maker’s Director. Published in three Nash, the favourite architect of the Prince towards an increasing professionalism. The editions between 1754 and 1762, this highly Regent, later George IV, was the master of careers of the three greatest neo-classical influential pattern-book spanned the crucial this new style. His interiors for the Prince in architects of the period, James ‘Athenean’ mid-century development in furniture design the Brighton Pavilion combined exotic colour Stuart, Sir William Chambers and Robert away from the fanciful elaboration of the with the most profligate use of rich materials; Adam reveal a certain similarity of aim and rococo and towards a more severe and in some ways this was a trend that would achievement. All three had immersed ‘regular’ neo-classical style. continue to define the interiors of a small themselves deeply in studies of the One of the most remarkable changes in elite of extravagant patrons in America as architecture of the ancient world and all three social life in the late eighteenth century was a well as in England and France well into the found ways in which to apply this knowledge marked movement away from formality. The twentieth century. to the creation of interiors and the kinds of greatest consequence of this trend both in By comparison with Nash’s lavish furniture required in modern civic and social and design terms was a novel search for interiors, those created by the other great domestic situations. Of the specialist comfort and softness in interiors and the architect of the Regency period Sir John furniture makers of the day none enjoys a creation of many entirely new forms of Soane seem in a way restrained. Soane’s greater reputation, even to this day, than furnishings. Old-style rooms of parade and genius lay in the ordering of architectural Thomas Chippendale. Working for many of formal parlours were replaced with space, the opening of unexpected vistas from the most important patrons of his day, comfortable morning rooms, multi-purpose room to room and the multiplication of Chippendale exemplifies the trajectory of the libraries and new kinds of charmingly views and transformation of light by the use talented craftsman who rose to the status of informal drawings-rooms. Sumptuously of mirrors. Soane’s personal extravagance lay designer and highly successful contractor. His upholstered pieces of furniture such as in the collecting of antiquities and curiosities position at the cutting-edge of his trade was chaises longues and Grecian couches were (as well as sculpture, drawings, paintings, cemented by the publication of a book of his placed in relation to novel items such as furniture and books). His own house, laid

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out as a private museum, celebrated the models from Japan and especially from Hotel or his innovative Daily Express legacy of the classical world, but used ancient Greece, was one of a few architect– Building in London, an Art Deco myriad architectural conceits to create the designers to create spare, elegant rooms and extravagance clad in black Vitrolite. For most innovative and inventive domestic furnish them with unornamented pieces built designers such as Tim Gosling who from spaces and decorative interiors of his day. upon slender lines. However, by the end of time to time wish or are required by the One of Soane’s more famous pupils, Sir the century inventive spirits such as Sir Edwin nature of the commission to work in a Robert Smirke is another of Tim Gosling’s Lutyens were again breathing new life into more contemporary idiom, three great heroes, celebrated for his imposing design the traditional classical forms, playing erudite figures from the pioneering or heroic phase for the British Museum. games with an architecture full of witty of International Modernism stand as With the waning of the neo- allusions to the past. inspiration: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, classicical influence as the nineteenth The rise of Modernism in the early years Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. Mies century progressed, other styles such as of the twentieth century did not, as might claimed that he sought to establish an gothic increasingly came to the fore. The have been expected, mean that all interest in architecture fully representative of modern Victorian interior was characterised by its the styles of the past was expunged and nor times and as much the natural expression of unprecedented density of furnishing as well did it bring about the demise of the classical the age as the classical and gothic styles had as by the overwhelming reliance it placed tradition. Classically trained architects such been. The emphasis in this twentieth-century upon historicising styles of furniture and as Sir Albert Richardson continued to work architectural style was on extreme clarity and decoration. Even the furniture designers of using the Orders and ancient canons of simplicity, and his buildings made the most the Aesthetic movement and reformers of proportions and detailing. Others, such daring use of modern materials such as the 1870s such as Charles Lock Eastlake, as Sir Owen Williams adapted classical industrial steel and plate glass to define Christopher Dresser and Bruce Talbert principles and applied them to the creation interior spaces. conformed essentially to this pattern. of new types of structure created with In general terms the trend in England E.W.Godwin, who took many of his novel materials, such as the Dorchester in those creative inter-war years was towards

8 Sir John Soane, The Library-Dining Room in Sir John Soane’s house, London, 1798.

7 The Breakfast Room in Sir John Soane’s house.

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a gentler Modernism based on the observance scale, seemingly ‘free’ ultra-modernist of classical proportion in buildings structures and many high-tech sky-scrapers increasingly stripped of any historical which subtly reference the three-part division decorative detail either externally or of the classical column into base, shaft and internally. By contrast French designers of capital, still conform either imperceptibly or interiors and furniture makers such as André perhaps even unconsciously to many of the Arbus explored the use of novel design proportional canons of the classical manner. motifs, but worked with ever-richer materials Paradoxically, the fact that so much of our that evoked the luxuries of the past. For furnishings and interiors, and so many new contemporary designers, such as Tim buildings seem so deliberately free-form, and Gosling, both these strategies can offer yet observe – however obliquely – ‘the rules’, exciting potential. serves to point up and strengthen the These days relatively few major buildings assertion that the classical tradition remains are erected in a ‘correct’ classical style, even today a pervasive, potent and positive adhering to the precise proportional dictates influence on the way we choose to live. of the orders and enriched with carved decoration following the ancient models. Indeed, most contemporary buildings that are designed this way tend to be small, private and often frivolous adornments for the gardens and parks of indulgent landowners. However, every year vast numbers of new buildings all over the world, including large-

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0 Gosling fitted library constructed in sycamore.

7 The oculus in a private library in English sycamore with a Venetian reliquary, the back section inlaid with London plane (lacewood).

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