THE JOURNAL
(BOS) accessed via a red-curtained doorway; an artwork by Louise Bourgeois, never before exhibited in the world but now displayed over the bar’s fireplace, inspired the softly curving interiors. Leather by the Design Centre’s Whistler Leather adorns the bar stools with their slender bubble-glass bases. “A global hotel brand delivers a level of knowledge
and identity, but it’s the local and personal knowledge that can realise a project to the next level,” says Jo Littlefair of Goddard Littlefair, which recently oversaw the interiors for Mondrian Shoreditch London, sourcing fabrics from Zimmer + Rohde, Colefax and Fowler and Lelièvre Paris. Flexibility of space is also becoming increasingly important, drawing in customers from the local area to create a mini-community. “For designers of hotels, it means that the ‘all-day-dining’ restaurant needs to be designed to be uplifting in the morning and intimate and welcoming by evening,” says Littlefair. At the new Mondrian, “we paid close attention to the cafe-bar and rooftop spaces to ensure that the areas worked throughout the day as meeting, working and eating spaces that could transform at night into alluring evening venues.” Mondrian has retained the private members’ club that previously occupied the building, The Curtain
Club, to create this workspace by day and social hub by night. Elsewhere in the capital, new members’ clubs are proving the importance of a sense of belonging by catering to a niche market: join the Fitzdares for sports lovers, or Club64, which switches from cool Soho salon to cocktail-dispensing members’ club. At new club Nikita in Mayfair, designer Victoria Vogel
“THROUGH EACH EVENT, WE ARE ABLE TO OFFER A CHANCE TO
BE INSPIRED, TO CONNECT WITH ONE ANOTHER AND TO DISCOVER INNOVATIVE NEW DESIGNS”
worked to a brief calling for an interior echoing a cosy, sophisticated Parisian apartment, with chinoiserie and moiré wallcoverings and lots of mirrors, incorporating flooring from Stark Carpet, and fabric and trim from Dedar, Zinc Textile, Zimmer + Rhode and Samuel & Sons, among others.
New London restaurants and bars have an equally
confident outlook, from the reopening of Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair with interiors by Peter Mikic, to Isola San Carlo in St Christopher’s Place, where design studio Fettle has created a fresh, Sicilian-inspired interior with pink marble countertops, a high-gloss ceiling that reflects the light and banquettes upholstered in a smart green and white fabric by Brunschwig & Fils. The Design Centre of course has its own well-
established members’ club in the shape of The Design Club – a community-within-a-community of like minded professionals and design enthusiasts. For Staffan Tollgård, the feeling of togetherness as one showroom among many is one of the Design Centre’s core strengths. “It uniquely creates strength from diversity,” he says. “Individual, often competing companies, working at the top of their respective games, become one design destination and support each other by attracting the very best designers and industry professionals to this shared space. “It’s a cliché, but so true: the Design Centre is so
much more than the sum of its parts. As we have gone through the last 18 months, I have definitely appreciated the sense of solidarity that our community offers and the support we offer to one another. I am optimistic that this ethos will carry us all forward.”
OPPOSITE: The Connaught’s Red Room, a new bar by Bryan O’Sullivan Studio (BOS) draws in its in-the-know clientele with unique artwork on the walls and bespoke design – the leather on the bar stools is by the Design Centre’s Whistler Leather and fabric was sourced from Métaphores (available at Elitis). ABOVE: Fettle’s bright and fresh Sicilian-inspired design for new London restaurant Isola San Carlo, where smart banquettes, upholstered in ‘Audemar Stripe’ fabric by Brunschwig & Fils, meet pink and green marble floors and glossy yellow woodwork
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Photo: Helen Cathcart
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