Dark Nostalgia

Maybe it's because my mood of late has been somewhat darker, but as someone whose decorating style has to date been fairly bright and shiny, with the boatshed characterised by expanses of white interspersed with lots of prettiness:

And more of the same:

I've suddenly turned into someone who would await with anticipation the following recently-ordered volume:

This book by Eva Hasberg, according to The Faster Times, 'explores 25 contemporary spaces that have been designed with an eye to the past.Across the U.S., with forays to London and Paris, Hagberg looks at bars, restaurants, hotels, and homes, considering their emotional resonance along with their styling. “We are recreating our own history and embracing the darkness that comes with it,” she writes in the book’s introduction. Designers are restoring this imagined past through warm, tactile materials, creating interiors that immediately evoke a time and place that feels familiar, if a little mysterious. Ultimately, “we have become nostalgic for a time that never existed.”'

Below is an image from the book of the loft apartment of Stephen Alesh and Robin Standefer of Roman and Williams. I love the map drawer, botanical prints and see sponges, as well as the use of black painted timberwork:

And the Julian Schnabel-designed Gramercy Hotel in Mahattan:

This is the Apotheke Hotel, also in Manhattan. According to the Steampunk Home blog, this hotel is designed to look like a 19th century Austrian apothecary:

I'm not sure why I've taken to this aesthetic so strongly. It's not just because it's informed by a sense of history and craftmanship, but that it recreates a history that never really was, that is timeless. I'm not really one to want a room from the past to be replicated exactly, because I find this a bit too serious, but am much more open to the idea of pastiche and its associated playfulness. Consequently, a few changes are afoot here in the boatshed which may take a while to come to fruition.