“Just as homes can be laid out to maximize social interaction, an individual room can be designed to positively reinforce parent-child bonds. The placement and relationship of each piece of furniture to another affects how human connections are made. For instance, adding an L-shaped sectional to a family room with an ottoman in front invites everyone to gather to play games, do homework, and converse. Having an inviting, comfortable, well-lit place to read to a child fosters intimacy. Including trundle beds in children’s rooms makes it easy to have sleepovers, promoting socialization.
“Contrary to what one might think, elegance and practicality are not irreconcilable for families. Throughout a home, materials can be aesthetically pleasing as well as durable.”
Join me on Thursday, May 18th at 11:30 am in the David Sutherland Showroom for a Keynote panel discussion with AD 100 designers Madeline Stuart from Los Angeles and Vicente Wolf from New York.
We’ll be talking ‘Modernity’, and what’s considered ‘Modern’ now as we advance into the 21st Century and The Information Age. Proves to be a very exciting and enlightening conversation.
“Color is, of course, the easiest way to make a bold statement. There are no bad colors, but it is a lot easier to create an exuberant interior with red than it is with beige. Nancy Lancaster’s butter yellow room at Colefax and Fowler, David Hicks’s drawing room using ten shades of red, Billy Baldwin’s sublime blue room at the Villa Fiorentina, and Mark Hampton’s chocolate brown room in a Kips Bay showhouse will always be a huge influence, because although each room is unique, they all share a clarity and sense of purpose expressed through a strong color statement.”
“Love of strong color is a personality trait, and like an MGM musical, I choose to decorate in Technicolor. There are no rules when using color to foster exuberance, but I like using a classic combination like blue and white as a jumping-off point and then adding in the spice—such as orange.”
I realize I’m not the only design enthusiast that remembers Robert Denning & Vincent Fourcade‘s maximalist approach to decoration. I loved the excess of their interiors and I was certainly not their only fan.
And as you’ll see it’s the love of ‘more-is-more’ that pervades, in a very tasteful way, this year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House. Beginning with Richard Mishaan’s salon – the ultimate nod to Italian legend Renzo Mongiardino — the house packs a punch… Continue reading “Kips Bay Decorator Show House 2017”
In the opening paragraph of Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus Manifesto, the founder of the movement suggests “The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building!”, further professing “Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as “salon art.”
David Mann clearly understands the importance of these dictates.
The title of Marie Kalt’s new book from Rizzoli New York references ‘The New Chic’, but she could just as easily have suggested ‘the radically cool’ as an alternative description. Every room in this book is sublime, especially those created for the annual design showcase AD Intériers where the participating designers are given carte blanche to create living spaces unfiltered by commissioning clients… Continue reading “The New Chic: French Style from Today’s Leading Interior Designers”