Her Dark Materials

Finally my book has arrived and it is just as good as I had hoped. "Dark Nostalgia"by Eva Hagberg is all about interiors which have been informed by a sense of a past that never existed, if that makes sense. But while I love the images, what does it for me is the language she uses to describe both the aesthetic itself and her feelings toward these rooms. Here's an example:

"The layering of history that we see in these spaces, the weight with which so many of them have been considered and designed, immediately reassures us that our today-even once we've left the cocooned surroundings of dark wood and detailed chandeliers and stuffed eagles and weighty whale bones- is going to be better than all right...The collection of knotty planks and rococo mirrors and reclaimed lights and ancient fan belts have all come together to paint a picture of a time that never was, but still a time that I can remember wanting". That's poetry to my ears.

One of the interiors featured is that of Freeman's Hotel in Manhattan:

And the Manhattan loft of Robyn Standefer and Stephen Alesch. As a former teacher I love the chalkboard. And I wouldn't mind the map drawer either:



Images from The Faster Times website

My favourite restaurant in the book is Public which was, as Hagberg so eloquently puts it, "one of the first New York restaurants to play with an aesthetic of reinterpreted nostalgia, and it became a touchstone for historically informed readaptive reuse-the pleasure of the reclaimed barn door, the brightly dropped filament bulb. . . .The designers looked to ideas of collective memory as articulated through a public library and the thrill of discovery inherent in its card catalogs . . . The detail expressed in Public, in the consistency of design from the typewriter typography of the menus to the obviously government-issue doors, the hanging mailbox keys with their rubber-stamp labels, and the books with their Dewey decimal-inspired classifications lining the coat check space, creates an unexpected but familiar sense of honesty."

Image from Peter Gordon website 

Image from Public website

As a former librarian, I'm in love with the whole card catalogue and Dewey decimal-labelled books aesthetic. Here's my own little card catalogue looking a little lost amidst the coloured cushions:



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.