English Cottage interiors

     

    This book originally published in 1989 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in hardback, as part of the 'Country Series' which may eventually have extended to some 46 titles.  The subsequent publishing history is rather complex.  Then W&N was bought by Orion in 1991 the series was then reissued in paperback under the subsidiary imprint of Phoenix Illustrated.  I believe that the numbering of the books was changed, though I may be wrong.  Eventually the publishing of the series passed to another subsidiary imprint 'Seven Dials Publishing'. 

     Anyway, to the volume in question, the paperback edition of 'English Cottage Interiors', published in, I think, 1991.  The author is Hugh Lander and the photographer Peter Rauter.  Actually, it's never explicitly said who the photographer is; it is merely implied.  While the text is copyrighted to the authors, the photos are copyrighted to the publishers.  For me the photographs make the book.  Whenever possible, Mr Lauter used natural lighting; the results are quite atmospheric.
     It really is a lovely thing, a sort of Coffee table book in miniature.  The interiors featured range from the self-conscious to the utilitarian; the urban to the rural.  It is just the sort of thing that, for both financial and cultural reasons, could not be produced today.

The New House Book II

      A second tranche of images from Terence Conran's 'New House Book' of 1985.

    The first image is a page of photographs taken in Leon Krier's Belsize Park flat in North London.  In the mid-eighties I began to know the place quite well.  The library was at the front looking out on to the street.  There was, I think, a grand piano in the room, though I may be mistaken. The rustication in the hall contained all sorts of storage, with a tiny bathroom at the far end on the right. Anyway, outside of the world of the country house, I think it must be one of the stylish rooms I have yet experienced.  I wonder if it still exists. (20.06.26  An informant tells it does.)

The New House Book I

     A day of sunshine and half-hearted showers; a blustery day with the trees just beyond the garden sounding like the sea.  A welcome return to normal weather.

     A return also to the world of Terence Conran, and his second big book of interior design: 'The New House book' of 1985.  My edition of the book is published by Book Club Associates; the original by Conran Octopus.  'English Style', by Stafford Cliff and Suzanne Slesin, was published the previous year and the difference could not be more marked.  Like the original House Book, this is a collaborative effort.  The usual names appear: Stephen Bayley, Gillian Darley, Susan Collier (of Collier Campbell), and the aforementioned Suzanne Slesin, and Stafford Cliff.  Cliff was the Project Consultant, and Hilary Arnold the Project Editor.

     So the mid-eighties, and many of us will have an idea of what that entails, a notion gleaned from journalism and the internet.  The same applies to the proceeding decade, as though 1970s decor comprised solely of garish wallpaper.  I cannot stress enough that since the end of the 18th century we have been in period of eclecticism.  So what do we find here?            Firstly, much that I wrote about the first 'House Book' (Mitchell Beazley, 1974) could equally apply here.  Those six categories of interior which were there as a guide for the perplexed remain, but their presence is by implication.  Secondly, let me say that not all the interiors on display are contemporaneous, some are the creation of the previous decades, centuries.  Realising also, that these images are a selection, an editorialising, so not entirely objective, it is still possible to make some general comments on what, it has to be said, is a very middle class selection.*  On the whole it is 'all done in the best possible taste'.  The outlandishness that was the hallmark of a certain strand of 60s/70s taste is largely absent.   An elegant sobriety rules.  After all, the interview with Conran which fronts the book is entitled 'A Taste for Simplicity'.  Colours are on the whole subdued.  There is a tendency to isolate items, endowing them some sort of signification, which may be the result of the increasing interest in the 'designer' object.  Many of the rooms are very serious, if not intellectual; austere to the point of loosing a sense of domesticity.  They are rooms of parade, not comfort.  As I have written before these sort of rooms begin to take on the quality of public space.  All that said there is much to admire.  The design of the book is excellent (with the exception of the Dust Jacket).  Perhaps those rooms which hint at the Mediterranean are the best.  You may recall that 'Mediterranean' is one of those six categories of the original House Book, and is one that in this book Conran sought to emphasize, it being the only one mentioned in the introductory interview.

     Unlike Habitat, this Conran publication happily takes Post-Modernism in its stride.  One of the reasons, I think, that things went a bit awry at Habitat in the 80s was the inability to come to terms with the change in taste in the late 70s.  Perhaps a bit strange that, as I believe, and I'm sure I've said this before, it is possible to make a case for Habitat being in a state of eclecticism if not Post Modernism since its inception.  It was always a bit of a dressing up box.  This book is no different.

* A book like this is a complex enough thing; at one level it functions as a survey of contemporary taste, but it is also in a quiet, polite sort of way, a polemic, and a manifesto.  And that's before we get to the book as 'Apologia Pro Vita Sua'.

'Mlinaric on Decorating'

      I've had this book - large, hardback, excellent photography - on my shelves for years now, but as with any 'recently' published book I feel a bit reticent about posting images from it, but here goes....

     Mr Mlinaric, born in 1939, is one of Britain's foremost interior designers, though now retired.  He has worked for the likes of Mick Jagger and the Rothschilds.  As a child he was inspired by a number of chance encounters with remarkable interiors; Widcombe Manor near Bath, home of Jeremy & Camilla Fry; Leixlip Castle, home of Desmond & Mariga Guinness.  Ireland, in general, stirred his visual imagination: Dublin, 'a perfect Georgian city, shabby and seedy, old-fashioned, with little shops with turf fires burning', and the decaying country houses of the Ascendancy, 'when a celling came down, the family just closed the door and moved to another room.  They wouldn't sell their houses, hoping for a better days, and as a young man found that very romantic, just holding on and keeping things.'  There is something very poetic about these sentiments. He trained at the Bartlett, moving from architecture to interior design after a year.  He was part of the whole Swinging Sixties thing, and apparently knew everyone, some of whom, such as Ozzie Clarke moved in the circles documented in Peter Schlesinger's 'Checkered Past'.  There is a short documentary ostensibly about young men, including Mlinaric, with long hair made in 1967 by the BBC.  One way, perhaps, of seeing that whole 'Swinging Sixties' phenomena is as an attempt to re-enchant the world, to revive the poetic and the mystical.

     David Mlinaric seems, from the beginning of his career, to have worked in two styles, one contemporary and one traditional.  It is the latter that interests me and in particular there are three schemes from quite early on in his career which I think are quite masterful: Thorpe Hall (1970-72), interesting not only because it represents his own taste, but was done with such assurance for somebody in their early thirties; Beningborough Hall, (1977-79), for the National Trust; 'An Eighteenth Century Lodge', (1977-1979).  It was this last scheme that I remember from an early edition of World of Interiors.  Later work in this style is to be found at Luggala (1997-2006), Waddesdon Manor (1990-2002), and Milgate Park (2002-2006).  At times it is Neo-Classical, at other times almost Neo-Victorian.  Sometimes, interestingly, 'Sixties'.  Perhaps it never went away.  (Though Thorpe Hall stands almost out of time.)  Anyway, Mlinaric moves with ease and admirable skill between styles, and with this remarkable talent he has contributed to the public realm here in the UK with restoration of Spencer House, London; the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden; The National Gallery; The National Portrait Gallery; and the design of The British Galleries at the V&A.  His knowledge must be encyclopaedic. 

Mlinaric on Decorating  Mirabel Cecil & David Mlinaric, Francis Lincoln Limited, 2008

Stephen Calloway in 'English Style'

      I was flicking through 'English Style' by Suzanne Slesin and Stafford Cliff  the other day, and I was left wondering who created the interior below - the text contains no name, but the owner is described as 'a curator at the V&A'.  I was considering if it was the work of Sir Roy Strong - who rarely, if ever, appears in books such as this - when suddenly I had one of those light bulb moments and thought of the historian and curator Stephen Calloway, and whose flat I have posted about here.  Well, sure enough, a quick comparison of images from the original House & Gardens article and these below revealed furniture and other items in common.  It may therefore be safe to assume that these highly sophisticated interiors share the same owner, and is indeed Stephen Calloway.  Whoever the owner, I find these rooms immensely satisfying.  But what of the relationship between both interiors in time?

The Habitat Catalogue VII: 1985

      What to say about this 1985 edition of the Habitat Catalogue that I haven't said before? It's probably not the worse, I suppose.  From what I've seen of it the 1982/3 edition is maybe a contender for that award, although 1988 is a strong runner.  Like the 1981/2 catalogue, which I reviewed last year, there does seem to a general aesthetic falling off.  This 1985 edition, I should point out, is the edition I mentioned in my post on 'English Style' by Suzanne Slesin & Stafford Cliff.

     As usual there are several Habitats on display.  To begin with there are the six templates, or looks, to be found in the introduction of Terence Conran's 'The House Book' of 1972.  For the uninitiated these six templates are: 'Country House', 'Farm House', 'Town House', 'Mediterranean', 'International', and 'Eclectic'.  That final category is, I suspect, less easy to define, or find.  It could, I suppose, be what you couldn't buy in Habitat.  The sort of things that made it seem that bit more liveable and interesting, and are that bit less prominent in this edition than hitherto.  

     Secondly there is the matter of style, for instance in this catalogue there is High Tec and 'Chic Graphique', and 'Neo-Victorian', but Art Deco, once prominent in the 1970s catalogues, has gone completely.
    Finally there is a third (as it were) typology at work in this catalogue.  Let me explain.  The major change - a major conceptual change, I think - was the introduction of the 'Habitat Country' range; furniture, fabrics and kitchenware, etc.  Some of it good, some of it less so.  In many respects it was nothing new - it was, essentially, the 'Country House' and 'Farm House' templates combined and repackaged.  A victory, then, of style over substance?  Perhaps, yes. However, it is the first time in the Habitat catalogue when these categories have been made so explicitly distinct.  The contrast between 'Country' and the rest never so heightened.  It would be reductionist of me to present this as a simple choice between the bland and the rebarbative (see the Viby range below), simply because the aesthetics of the 1970s catalogues remain in places, but it wouldn't be wide of the mark.

     On to 'things', and the deeply covetable Habitat Chesterfield was then still available.  As always seems to be the case the fabrics are particularly hit-and-miss. The best all seem to be designed by Collier Campbell; of the others the best are Fleurs des Champs and Jardin.

     Crockery is also hit-and-miss.  There are some excellent designs: Bianca, Petit Fleur, Kristina, Blue Copenhagen (also then available in pink) and 'Asiatic Pheasant' by Burleigh of Stoke-on-Trent; and there are some terrible ones: Quadra, Ribbon, Cerise, and Sandie.  Interestingly Old Colonial, a design from the 1950s produced by Adams, also of Stoke-on-Trent, was still available.  As always, the glassware and kitchenware are pretty much spot on.