Hotel design
with that idea of introducing a more decorative traditional furniture piece, but it felt like an imitation. In the end we felt that the simple leopard print carpet distilled that sense of luxury and opulence, yet in a minimalist fashion. We re-planned the rooms as well to maintain a minimalist aesthetic for the furniture, yet a more spacious comfortable experience, also adding more lounge seating.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY A ‘DECIDEDLY ENGLISH DECORATIVE APPROACH’? HOW HAVE YOU ACHIEVED THIS? With Sanderson I saw the design as a distillation of a decorative English hotel tradition that reached all the way back to the great English manor houses. Even the name (while of a revered fabric and wallpaper company) could be that of a great estate. So I imagined Sanderson as the ghost - or spectre - of an English manor house, as if it had existed on this spot and the city grew up around it. I looked to the history of English decoration reaching back to the Regency era (which inspired the sleigh bed) and a bit beyond to reference decorative elements and reinterpret them. Some of the more subtle elements were inspired by Starck’s use of the dog portraits in the lobby, which themselves can be traced to a painting tradition from the English countryside. The robust claw feet of the tufted Tchin Tchin Chair (named after my robust French Bulldog, who also evolved from the English Bulldog) and the svelte, hound- like profile of the Sandershund chair carry on the country estate theme of the lobby portraits. The major decorative elements are the carpet and the panoramic scenic roller blinds. For these we looked at real iconic English decoration. For the carpet we had the benefit of working with axminster carpet technology, which has progressed to the point that you can really specify each yarn placement and create something truly pictorial. To impart a real sense of luxury, even in a machine-made product, I wanted to infuse a sense of the handmade in the design. I looked at the 17th century woodcarvings of Grinling Gibbons and the 18th century gilt plaster musical trophy designs at Norfolk house by Jean Antoine Cuenot and Thomas Clarke. Inspired by this rich handmade decorative tradition, I worked with a local Los Angeles painter, Linda Miller, to concept and executive an expressionistic painted interpretation of a plaster trophy panel, featuring musical and heraldic imagery that might have been found at the mythical Sanderson. Rather than just use the modern available technology to create a pictorial reproduction, we introduced the hand of the artist to represent the luxury tradition. While the furniture elements of the room reference manor house interior design, I wanted to play off the idea of the view from the window and transform the room at night, when there is no view. The early 19th century saw the advent of hand-blocked, panoramic scenic wallpaper. Developed mainly in France, but popular in England as well, it was often a way to impart an exotic, or foreign, sensibility to a room. A Roman forum scene celebrated the Regency era’s newfound classicism, while a chinoiserie garden
58 Interior Design Today July 2014
Image: Tim Andreas, image courtesy of Mark Robert Halper
might represent world travel, or the desire for it. In Sanderson I wanted to flip this concept on it’s head and create a scene inspired by the tradition of the English landscape and have the exotic view be one from modern London into the pastoral country life of the past. I worked with a friend and Los Angeles artist, David Hargrove, to develop the composition, inspired in large part by Capability Brown’s landscape at Petworth Park. David created full- scale panels, painted in the style of hand-blocked paper, which were then scanned and printed. While I could have probably found some scene and worked with a Photoshop artist to apply a filter and create a similar effect, I think the months of creation and effort that went into the composition and execution is something that, again, imparts a real sense of luxury. You see all that effort in the final product. So as a Los Angeles based designer, I can’t say the approach is particularly English, but the inspiration for the designs was drawn from the English decorative tradition.
HOW HAVE YOU MAINTAINED THE MORGANS HOTEL GROUP BRAND THROUGHOUT THE HOTELS? I think maintaining the brand is really a group effort. I worked closely with Verena Haller and Honor Nebiker at Morgans Hotel Group and the
owner’s representative, Geraldine McKenna, to make sure that what I proposed reflected the essence of the hotels. In the design process you propose things to yourself, you receive inspiration from varied sources, and you weigh it all in your gut until it feels right. If there’s any doubt, you’re not done yet. With hotel design you have the luxury of creating a model room to evaluate everything. You have to distill all the reactions, sometimes fight to keep the vision, when maybe only a few of you see it. I try to demystify the design process. If I can’t explain what I am trying to achieve to someone well enough that they can evaluate it from an objective standpoint, and not just personal taste, then I haven’t done my job. I put the hotel and the design first. These hotels are so different that it’s not about taste. One can be very decorative and one can be very experiential, but they both have to be true to themselves. When you have a good team of people working in synch toward that goal, even when they come from differing viewpoints (in fact because they do) you can assure that you achieve your goal. If it’s authentic that will come through.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR MORGANS HOTEL GROUP? We have a few more tricks up our sleeve for London, but as usual, my lips are sealed…
www.morganshotelgroup.com
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