In a new column, we explore two diametrically opposed — but equally chic — decorating styles, looking at paired sets of living rooms created by some of the top names in interior design and architecture. Today, we begin with one series of spaces that exemplifies a modern aesthetic, and another that exudes old-world elan. For each, we’re connecting you to items from 1stdibs dealers that let you bring the look home.
MODERN ELEGANCE
Clean-lined and designed to eliminate any extraneous detail, featuring furnishings by the likes of Charles and Ray Eames, Mies van der Rohe, Charlotte Perriand, Giò Ponti, Jean Prouvé and other greats from the first half of the 20th century, the best modernist interiors celebrate purity of form. As Le Corbusier demanded with his tenet that a house should be a machine for living, in these spaces, form always follows function, but that functionality never exists at the expense of aesthetic pleasure.
Lee Mindel, New York, New York One of the top American interpreters of classic modernism working today, New York architect Lee Mindel gave this duplex in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood a distinctly clean-lined, less-is-more, mid-century look, using a sheet of steel-framed white glass around the fireplace to lend it an appearance of lightness, and surrounding it with SM2 armchairs by Knoll and a daybed by Poul Kjærholm, among other furnishings. Photo by Michael Moran/OTTO
Steven Harris and Lucien Rees Roberts, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico For a recently completed home on a desert hillside perched above the Pacific Ocean, New York architect Steven Harris and his husband, interior designer Lucien Rees Roberts, created a glass-box living room that takes serious advantage of its stunning water views, filling the space, as they so often do, with a stylish selection of un-self-consciously modern furniture. Among the pieces are Angelo Lelli's Triennale lamp for Arredoluce and an Adrian Pearsall Wave lounge. Photo by Scott Frances
Philip Johnson, New Canaan, Connecticut The first curator of the department of architecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, master American modernist Johnson built his barely-there Glass House as a country retreat in 1947, and it’s been an icon ever since. The same suite of Barcelona furniture — which Mies van der Rohe originally designed for his German Pavilion at the Barcelona Exposition of 1929 — remained among the house’s minimal decor until Johnson's death, in 2005, and to this day. (Now owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic preservation, the Glass House is open to the public.) Photo by Eirik Johnson
Michele Bönan, Rome, Italy Inspired by the early-20th-century Fascist-era Rationalist architecture of Italy, as well as the 1960s style of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and David Hicks's graphic prints, contemporary Florentine architect Bönan furnished the skylight-lit living room-like lobby of the recently opened J.K. Place Roma hotel with a mix of vintage pieces, including seating by Eugenio Gerli, plus custom creations he based on the work of the greats of the middle of the last century. Photo courtesy of Michele Bönan
Pierre Koenig, Los Angeles, California In 1959, young California architect Koenig built the cliffside Case Study House No. 22 (also known as the Stahl House) as part of Arts & Architecture Magazine’s celebrated Case Study Program, which sponsored some of the most forward-thinking residential design in America from 1945 to 1962. Here, Julius Shulman’s famed photograph, offered by Yancey Richardson Gallery, highlights how the living room cantilevers out over Hollywood, the clean lines of its architecture and decor reflecting the street grid below.
Paul Rudoph, New York, New York Designed in the early 1970s, and in typically unconventional style, by noted Brutalist architect Rudolf, the former chair of Yale’s School of Architecture, the living room of this apartment on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue featured undulating built-in furniture, Lucite cocktail tables on castors and walls both carpeted and, as seen here, covered in mirrored mosaics. Photo by Anthony Cotsifas/Art Partner Licensing
Mary Fox Linton, London, England For more than 60 years, British interiors doyenne Fox Linton has been creating sleek, light-filled interiors like this impeccably pure-of-form double-height living room, which, despite its smooth, polished surfaces and rather rigid geometries, remains warm and inviting. Her ability to arrange furniture into conversation-conducive corners and to punctuate neutrals with pops of color are key to the success of her spaces. Photo courtesy of Mary Fox Linton
These sumptuous spaces are layered in the sort of rich materials, intricate patterns, tactile textures and artisanal ornament that call to mind the finest historic homes of Europe. While deeply rooted in tradition, and accented by centuries-old antiques and art, the rooms nonetheless telegraph a level of good taste that is truly timeless.
Christopher Hodsoll, Windsor, England In 1991, London-based interior designer and classic English-antiques dealer Hodsoll decorated a party space for Prince Philip’s 70th birthday in the garden of Windsor Castle. “It was a stately home in a tent. That was the height of my extravagance,” he demurred recently when talking about the space, which featured a grandly carved chimneypiece, fringed couches, tufted leather armchair, plush carpets and even gilded chandeliers hung from the tented ceiling. Photo by Peter Hodsoll
Timothy Corrigan, Loire Valle, France To mitigate against the Corinthian pilasters, ornate boiserie and other moments of baroque majesty in the Grand Salon of Château du Grand-Lucé — his 18th-century, 14-bedroom French countryside manor — Corrigan, a Los Angeles decorator, left the windows bare and chose a modestly sized chandelier rather than one scaled to the room's substantial proportions. (He chronicled his nearly 10-year restoration of the château in a monograph in 2013.) Neoclassical consoles frame the doorway and a pietra dura inlaid table stands at the room's center. Photo by Eric Piasecki, courtesy of Rizzoli
Nicky Haslam, London, England This drawing room in a London mansion decorated in 2005 by British polymath Haslam features a frieze made from the original castings from the Parthenon. Haslam combined these with such additional classical elements as heroic busts and deeply carved door and furniture moldings, plus Oriental carpets and more contemporary-feeling fabrics. Photo courtesy of NH Design
Betty Sherrill, New York, New York The doyenne of New York decorating, Sherrill, who died last May at the age of 91, headed up McMillen Inc. — the oldest continuously operating interior design firm in the country — for 40 years. Her own Sutton Place living room epitomizes her (and McMillen’s) enduring commitment to classicism and restraint: She decorated it in 1968, hanging a portrait of her mother-in-law above the couch, and it remained essentially unchanged until her death. Photo by Durston Saylor
Alidad, Paris, France A rich tapestry forms the backdrop of this Paris drawing room, which Iranian-born, London-based Alidad describes as “the embodiment of beauty, warmth, character and comfort” — words that could also refer to his overall East-meets-West style, which encompasses the best and brightest of traditions both European and Occidental, as shown in a 2013 monograph. Rich details abound, such as the boulle marquetry tea caddy atop the Regency-style table. Photo by James McDonald, courtesy of Rizzoli
Marella Agnelli, Corsica, France As revealed in the new memoir-cum-monograph from this last of Truman Capote’s “swans,” Agnelli and her husband — Fiat scion Gianni — acquired "Il Convento," a 16th-century former convent on the northwest end of Corsica, in 1989, after renting it for years. There, she adorned the walls, curtains and furniture of this room with a green-and-pink floral fabric of her own design.
Jacques Garcia, Normandy France A recent monograph shines the spotlight on the restoration, renovation and redecoration of incomparable French designer Garcia’s 17th-century Normandy estate, Château de Champ de Bataille. Here, Garcia creates Louis XVI levels of refinement in the château’s drawing room, which he has hung with portraits of the king and Marie-Antoinette, adorning the space with ornate gilded moldings, a dramatic crystal chandelier and silk-covered seating, among other palatial trappings. Photo by Eric Sander courtesy of Rizzoli
Henrietta Spencer Churchill, Scotland Though it was freshly decorated from its bowed windows and wood-plank floors up, this grand but cozily conversational living room in a newly built home in the Scottish countryside is as steeped in history and tradition as Spencer Churchill herself: the daughter and sister of the two most recent Dukes of Marlborough, whose family seat is Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. Photo by Christopher Drake
