Month: October 2025

Categories
Architects Architecture Country Houses People

Kings of Leinster + Borris House Carlow

The Lines of Beauty

“The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour.” I Corinthians 15:41

Roger White writes in Country Life, 3 October 2011, “First time visitors to Irish country houses are often struck by two things in particular. One is the sheer quality of architecture and craftmanship, and the other is the idiosyncrasy of the families who have owned these houses. Borris House in County Carlow has both characteristics in spades. The idiosyncrasy tends to be associated with the Anglo Irish but it would not be strictly accurate to so describe the Kavanaghs of Borris, about whom there is nothing ‘Anglo’.”

Staggered up a hillside, an architectural beauty parade of picturesque cottages clinging to the gradient, a Georgian house doubling as a petrol filling station, a boutique hotel boasting a celebrated chef, and an improbably vast château emerging like a granite mirage on the horizon, Borris in County Carlow is a cut above the average Irish village. With a County population of 50,000, one third that of the smallest London Borough, driving around Carlow is a breeze. It’s off the beaten track of the touristy east coast. Despite a chalkboard at the gates announcing a house tour, we’re the only people to turn up. Just us and the owner Morgan Kavanagh. There are no National Trust style timed entry queues round the curtilage.

While we are led round the house and adjoining chapel, something magical is happening outside. It’s the bewitching hour: late afternoon in an Irish winter. The windows of Borris House are ablaze – amber, cerulean, mauve, scarlet – in reflected glory as the sun sets behind the Blackstairs Mountains far away across the Barrow Valley. So what do we learn on our select tour? Rather a lot: Morgan proves to be an entertaining and well versed guide.

Key points of his tour include: Borris House is a mostly 1830s Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison confection. Neoclassical innards beneath a Tudoresque skin. In turn, the original Georgian box had swallowed up an older castle. Morrison masterpieces stretch the length of the country from Glenarm Castle in the north to Ballyfin in the midlands and Fota House in the south. Glenarm Castle, County Antrim, is the closest in looks.

Borris is the seat of the MacMorrough Kavanaghs, High Kings of Leinster. Their pedigree is traceable back to the dawn of Irish history. King Art Mór Mac Murchadha Caomhánach was a particularly feisty ancestor who reigned for 42 years, reviving his family’s power and land in between warring with the English King Richard II. The estate was once 12,000 hectares before being broken up in 1907. On the current 260 hectare walled demesne are Lebanon cedars, fern leaf beeches and Ireland’s tallest broadleaf tree. It’s a 44 metre high hybrid American poplar down by the River Barrow.

Morgan says, “A two storey wing with a walkway over the kitchen used to connect the main house to the estate chapel so that the family could enter straight into their first floor gallery seating. My grandmother demolished that wing. Anglican services are still held in the chapel every other Sunday.” Songstress Cecil Frances Alexander, forever extolling the combined merits of Christianity and country life, donated an organ (of the musical variety) to the chapel. Her son Cecil John Francis Alexander married Eva Kavanagh, daughter of a 19th century owner of Borris House, in 1882.

Most excitingly, in 1778, Eleanor Charlotte Butler, the sister-in-law of Thomas Kavanagh fled from Borris House where she was staying to elope with Sarah Ponsonby of Woodstock in Inistioge, County Kilkenny. Eleanor and Sarah escaped to East Britain and set up home together in Plas Newydd, Llangollen. They became well known as the ladies who did more than lunch together. Morgan recently discovered an 18th century letter in the library of Borris which refers to the pair as “Sapphos”.

Local historian Edmund Joyce carried out a study titled Borris House County Carlow and Elite Regency Patronage in 2013. Extracts include: “This study focuses on Borris House, the ancestral home of the MacMurrough Kavanagh family, situated beside the town of Borris in south County Carlow, Ireland. The house sits on a hillside facing southeast towards the County Wexford border. The Blackstairs Mountains, which terminate the prospect, form a boundary in that direction of unusual grandeur. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the MacDonough Kavanagh family were amongst the most powerful in the country with up to 30,000 acres of land in Counties Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford.”

“In the early 19th century Borris House underwent a dramatic transformation and the house as it now stands is the result of this remodelling of the earlier classical house. The architectural historian Peter Pearson describes how ‘in the 1800s the MacMurrough Kavanaghs of Borris embarked on a lavish building programme that transformed their 18th century mansion into a Tudor Revival showpiece’. The changes were performed under the direction of Richard Morrison, the Cork born architect. The remodelled Borris House was the earliest recorded property in County Carlow to adopt the Gothic Revival style. Early Gothic Revival houses such as Slane Castle, County Meath (1785), are simply classical houses with gothic details.”

“The importance of Borris House as a Regency house designed by an Irish architect, furnished by Irish craftsmen and occupied by a landed family of Gaelic descent deserves a thorough study in order to draw out a deeper understanding of its meaning in the broader context of Regency design both at home and abroad. The scale of the building project at Borris House can be categorised as considerable by any comprehensive by any standard. The veneering of the house in the Gothic Revival style brought it up to date with fashionable contemporary design. In Ireland, a building draped in a Gothic shroud provided a consciousness and awareness of defence together with a deep rooted long ancestral provenance.”

“Christine Casey in her essay The Regency Great House describes how Richard Morrison ‘created a series of starkly contrasting interiors’, stating that ‘Borris is clearly a house bristling with ideas, unresolved but full of vitality and interest’. This clearly underscores the importance of the house in the context of Irish Regency design. Casey sees Borris House as Richard Morrison’s Regency prototype that ‘whets the appetite for the Morrisons’ grandest and most mature country house, Ballyfin, County Laois’.” Richard Morrison’s son, although suffering from depression, would join him in the thriving architectural practice. Randal McDonnell, Lord Antrim, owner of Glenarm Castle, once remarked to us how Morrison junior, “Went by the rather wonderful name of Vitruvius.”

In 2022 Edmund Joyce gave a lecture on Borris to the Kilkenny Archaeological Society. He explained, “The house is missing a big chunk and that chunk is missing as a result of works that happened in the 1950s. So when you get an architect in the 1950s to give you advice they give you three options. First option to let Borris House and build a small house adjacent. Second, to demolish rear sections of Borris House and take down the top storey of the main house. Third, to demolish Borris House and build a small house adjacent, a four bedroom bungalow in the walled garden.”

The Kavanaghs’ architect was Dan O’Neill Flanaghan of Waterford City. Edmund pulled extracts out of his 1957 report: “Perhaps I will be forgiven if I say that Borris House is not an architectural gem … to completely remove the front portico I do not think the general appearance of the house would suffer by its removal … to invite tenders from demolition contractors, and the second to auction it room by room, or floor by floor, and employ one’s own contractor on the demolition.”

Fortunately any decisions on the future of the house and estate had to go through four trustees. Option two was chosen in part: demolish the long two storey subsidiary wing. This proved costly and bereft the house of its kitchen. A vintage photograph (copyright of the Irish Architectural Archive: one of several reproduced here for non commercial educational purposes) shows part of the vanished wing. The cupolas, the crowning glory of the square turrets at each corner of the main block were removed at this time.

That’s as far as the demolition progressed. Edmund ended his lecture with, “The house was going forwards then it started going backwards now it’s going forwards again. A lot of restoration work is happening and the current generation is very interested in putting back what was there before. It’s nice to see that it’s gone full circle.” The recent lime rendering washed in apricot accentuates the best parapet in Ireland, even without its cupolas. Turning the circle comes at a price: it costs the Kavanaghs about €250,000 a year to maintain and run Borris House and estate.

“The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” Ecclesiastes 1:5

Categories
Architecture Art People

Peter Doig + House of Music + Serpentine Galleries London

Ducks on Distant Oaks 

The colours of autumn have reached full seasonal radiance in Kensington Gardens. Serpentine Galleries to the north and south of The Long Water on the edge of the Gardens are enveloped by embraces of verdant vibrancy. To the vernissage of Peter Doig’s show House of Music at Serpentine South. Unlike its northern relative, the original building has no extensions. James Grey West’s 1934 neo Georgian red brick and stucco tea pavilion retains its original symmetrical elevations and plan.

Drawing colour indoors, Peter Doig is a meticulous colourist who uses disquieting combinations in his paintings. His use of colour is integral to the illusory quality of his work which blurs the line between figurative and abstract art. In place of photorealism portrayal is a hazy fractured vision. At times strong hues pull the viewer into the painting – a pink path here (Lion in the Road, 2015), an orange horizon there (Painting for a Poet, 2025).

Vernissage catering by Social Pantry in the Entrance Hall, café tables and chairs in the white walled West Gallery, and armchairs in the black walled East Gallery hark back to the building’s original use as a tea pavilion. The South Gallery opening off the Entrance Hall and the central clerestory lit North Gallery are hung but unfurnished. And everywhere, the sound of his record collection: 300 vinyls from Aretha Franklin to Winston Bailey play continuously on gigantic 1950s speakers.

The large Painting for Wall Painters (2010 to 2012) in the South Gallery faces the Entrance Hall. A montage of national flags includes a lion emblem representing Ethiopia. The Lion of Judah appears in the three equally large paintings in the North Gallery: Lions Ghost (2024), Rain the Port of Spain (2025) and Untitled (2025). Peter’s interest in painting lions was first stimulated by a childhood visit to the Port of Spain Zoo. Some of the lions, while majestic, are shown in a state of confinement: a metaphor for slavery and displacement in Trinidad. Born in Edinburgh, the artist lives between Trinidad and London.

One painting brings together music and art in oil on canvas. Giant speakers are piled high in front of palm trees in Maracas (2002 to 2008) in the West Gallery. In all his paintings, figurative details dissolve in heady washes and flows of painterly texture. Hazy strokes at the base of Maracas add a ghostliness to the otherwise hard lines. A small man stands on top of the middle speaker. What does it all mean? That’s the power of Peter Doig’s art: it’s as decipherable as a half forgotten technicoloured dream.

Categories
Design Developers Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Glas Restaurant Dublin + History

Dayhawks

It’s a torn newspaper cutting (The Irish Times? The Irish Independent?) that makes for fascinating reading. The article is long, but is worth taking the time to consume. “Head waiter laments the passing of the good old days of eating out” shouts the headline. “‘They have all closed – Red Bank, Dolphin and Jammet’s – restaurants that gave Dublin its Lucullan reputation up to the mid 1960s. That era has passed away. There is not the same discrimination in food,’ says Jimmy Beggan, for 40 years a water and finally head waiter in Jammet’s as he talks about the good old days to Conor O’Brien.”

Jimmy Beggan would undoubtedly be impressed by the contemporary restaurant scene in Dublin. There’s the British invasion of The Ivy and Ivy Asia (close neighbours as per this chain’s double branding location strategy) and Marco Pierre White Grill all on Trinity Street as well as Hawksmoor opening on College Green. It’s an international scene: spinach paneer in Baggot Street’s Kerala Kitchen, frequented by the urban elite on Friday evenings, is pure Patna on a plate.

At least one restaurant has made a comeback. The Unicorn, an Italian restaurant down Merrion Row was established in 1938. It was The Place to Be Seen at the turn of this century thanks to its flamboyant flame haired owners Simon and Christian Stokes, known as the Bang Brothers after their beautician mother Pia Bang. The restaurant was the victim of the Great Recession – and some extravagant spending. Chef Patron Kristian Burness has reopened The Unicorn.

In contrast to Hawksmoor’s carnivorous draw, Glas has a majority vegan minority vegetarian completely gluten free menu. This Michelin recommended restaurant is on Chatham Street under the shadow of St Stephen’s Green Centre. A three course €30 lunch (Carrot Mosaic, Hazelnut Gnocchi, Chestnut Mousse) is as joyful as the slightly nutty interior. Every colour is the new black in the maximalist decoration. Prints of Edward Hopper paintings add a sense of calm to the bathroom walls.

The article on the restaurant that had a strangely placed apostrophe continues: “Nothing, perhaps, illustrates the change in eating and drinking as Jimmy’s move from gracious living at 46 Nassau Street to the French Wine Centre in the basement of a Georgian building in Baggot Street. The basket chairs have been replaced by functional benches, the starched table linen by bare tabletops. Food takes the form of snacks but the wines, chosen by the French Ministry of Agriculture, form the main attraction. The Centre, in fact, represents France’s effort to cultivate an interest in the wines for which it is so famous. And that suits Jimmy Beggan, a member of the Guild of Sommeliers, a group dedicated to ‘the better service of wine’ as he puts it.”

“But it is in reminiscing of the old days that Jimmy’s eyes really light up. The shock of living in a Dublin devoid of its former famous restaurants has left him bemused, as if he had woken up one morning to find St Stephen’s Green replaced by a supermarket. ‘Dublin can ill afford to be without a restaurant like Jammet’s,’ is his verdict. Jimmy reflects a loyalty for the restaurant which he will never lose and which comes through in his conversation, laughing as he remembers the shouts of the French head chef and the pride with which he points out that all game served in Jammet’s was wild, unlike the great Tour d’Argent in Paris, where, he hints darkly, ‘Some of the duck is domestic.’”

“All dishes on the menu were à la carte; no question of table d’hote. And even though the list would not form a 10th of the Tour d’Argent’s, it had its speciality, Sole Jammet, steamed on the bone and serviced with a white wine and lobster sauce Americaine. Jammet’s I learnt has contributed greatly to gastronomic history, but in a rather obscure way. Lobster Burlington, lobster baked in the shell with a cheese sauce, owes its origin to the original Jammet’s known as the Burlington Restaurant and Oyster Saloons which was run by two brothers, Louis and Michel, at 26 St Andrew Street. That was before Louis moved to Nassau Street and Michel bought the Hôtel Bristol in Paris. Louis had previously been Chef to Lord Cadogan at what was then the Viceregal Lodge, now Áras an Uachtaráin.”

“In contrast with the present day, when a shop can turn into an office block overnight, the survival capacity of Jammet’s through the Great Depression and the stringencies of the Economic War are to be admired. The restaurant set its standards and kept to them. The international reputation helped so that wealthy visitors like the ‘old’ Aga Khan always dropped in. Jimmy reels off the names of the famous – Grace Moore the actress and opera singer who bought a special bottle of sherry there two days before she was killed in an air crash, Tyrone Power, Robert Donat, Burgess Meredith and of course, William Butler Yeats and his family. Yeats, his wife, daughter Anne and son Michael, were waited upon, Jimmy remembers, by Tom Kavanagh, whose claim to fame lay in his attending the Irish delegation to the Treaty signing in London in 1921 as official food taster. ‘Just to make sure they were not poisoned by the British.’”

“Jimmy Beggan first went to work in the restaurant as a commis waiter in 1928 and had progressed to head waiter by the time the place closed in 1967. He had been trained by a Swiss instructor in the first waiters’ course at the Technical School in Parnell Square. In 1932 he made an exploratory foray to Paris, but that was in the depths of the Depression so he decided to remain on in Dublin and Dublin certainty had its advantages. How did a top class restaurant obtain its supplies, the whitebait for instance, and the gulls’ eggs served as an appetiser? The whitebait came from ‘a family in Ringsend and they would be jumping out of the bucket when brought into the kitchen’. The gulls’ eggs came strangely enough from Raheenleagh in the Midlands. Lord Revelstoke sent some too from Lambay Island. But the really exotic foods like caviar and escargots were, naturally, imported.”

“The War brought changes and in fact Jimmy blames that conflagration for the change in eating habits. Gas rationing meant that the cooking had to be done at a certain time and this put an end to the long, drowsy meals which used to stretch into the afternoon. ‘People had to eat and drink by the clock,’ he says. There is art and skill in being a waiter, as Jimmy demonstrates. In the first place you had to time your dockets for the chef so that the dishes appeared in the correct order, and that was not always easy when things were busy. Then you had to know how to prepare the crêpes suzettes at the table – ‘the less butter the better and six pancakes at a time’.”

“The ingredients were exotic – kirsch, crème noyaux, brandy, Curaçao. You’d reel out satisfied after that. And then there was the caneton à la presse, duck compressed in the handpress and served in a kind of pâté with the legs, fried diable, on the plate. Recalling the routine made one’s mouth water. Jammet’s were fortunate, too, in that both Louis and Madame Yvonne, his wife, were the descendants of restaurateurs. Madame Jammet had other talents too as an artist, sculptress and woodcarver, producing the Stations of the Cross for churches in Dun Laoghaire and Limerick. She was also a dress designer and patron of the theatre.”

“Yes, undoubtedly talent of that sort and the easy sophistication of those days is sadly missing. Just think of the care which went into preparing a dish which we take for granted, the ubiquitous prawn cocktail. In Jammet’s it was Prawn Cocktail Marie Rose made with their own mayonnaise, tomato purée, white wine and a little fresh grapefruit juice. Nor did Jammet’s make any concessions to Women’s Lib. All the staff, except for the cashiers, were male. The head chef until shortly before the closure was always French. Then there were the others, the sauce, vegetable and entremets chefs, the kitchen porters, commis and full waiters, bar staff and doorman, all fitting into place, all part of a crew.”

“The minimum price of a meal at the Tour d’Argent is now something over £20 a head. To provide food and service of the quality of Jammet’s might well cost that amount in a comparable restaurant here. Slightly inhibiting, perhaps, which makes it all the more pleasant to recall the days when one could actually afford, about once a year or so, to try the rable de Lièvre sauce grand veneur after a dozen huitres Galway and followed by bombe glacée accompanied by a good burgundy. Jimmy recalls that the wine buyer was a Burgundian from Dijon, a man who had been a cooper in his youth. ‘And what could be better than that?’ he asks. What, indeed.”

Jammet’s was Ireland’s finest French restaurant from 1901 to 1967 run by two generations of Jammets: brothers Michel and François and then Michel’s son Louis supported by his wife Yvonne. A regular customer, the painter and broadcaster John Ryan, recalled “the main dining room was pure Second French Empire with a lovely faded patina to the furniture, snow white linen, well cut crystal, monogrammed porcelain, gourmet sized silver plated cutlery and gleaming decanters”. Opposite the side entrance to Trinity College, 46 Nassau Street is a central location. Lillie’s Bordello nightclub opened on the site in 1991 and for the next 28 years was The Place to Be Seen Dancing after dining in The Unicorn. Ever since, various pubs have taken over the premises.

It’s easy to become misty eyed about days of yore but the reality is that 60 plus years ago the choice of restaurant in Dublin was thin pickings and Jammet’s closing was a big loss. More poignant is the ephemeral nature of fame highlighted by this newspaper cutting. Only one of the mid 20th century celebrities is still a household name: William Butler Yeats. What about the actress and opera singer Grace Moore? Did she get to enjoy her special bottle of sherry before tragically dying? Now – in place of Red Bank and Dolphin and Jammet’s – fresh memories are being made in Kerala Kitchen and Glas and a myriad other restaurants. Some day some writer will reminisce on the Lucullan Twenties restaurant scene in Dublin below the parapets and pediments, namedropping long forgotten celebrities. Tour d’Argent is still going strong under third generation ownership.

Categories
Art Design Fashion People

The Africa Centre Southwark London + Mary Martin London

Black History and Futures Month

A Dame in Britain. A Queen in Ghana. A Day in Atlanta. Honour in three continents. More of Mary Martin later. The flank wall of The Africa Centre in Southwark’s cultural quarter a few blocks away from the Thames is filled with a mural of Ignatius Sancho (1729 to 1780). He was the original polymath, the seminal multihyphenate. A former enslaved African, he rose through 18th century society – no mean feat – relying on grit and talent to become a celebrated British writer, composer and abolitionist. Ignatius would also become the first person of African heritage to vote in a British general election. The portrait by London based visual artist Neequaye Dreph Dsane, known as Dreph, is loosely based on a 1768 portrait by Thomas Gainsborough. Ignatius set the bar high.

In his opening address at the Honorary Doctorate Conferment Ceremony held in The Africa Centre, Dr Matthew Godwin Mario on behalf of Myles Leadership University emphasised the importance of recognising people from diverse backgrounds who have made immense contributions to global development and continue to create opportunities and spaces for the next generation of leaders. “Myles Leadership University believes that leadership is not limited to the classroom,” he stated, “but lived through service, impact and innovation. Today we honour those who exemplify these values.”

This year’s honorary doctorate recipients were Chief Light Aboetaka (Chief Executive and Founder of African Afforestation Association in Germany). Adesegun Adeosun Junior (Cofounder of Afro Nation and Founder of Smade Entertainment Group in the UK). Henrietta Uwhubetiyi Amatoritsero (Chief Executive of Casual Queen Clothing in Nigeria). Bash Amuneni (Architect, Poet and Cultural Administrator in the UK). Bilkiss Moorad (Chief Executive of LegalWise in Botswana). Ogechi Origbe (Chief Executive Mattoris Supamart in Nigeria). Dr Tonye Rex Idaminabo (Chief Executive of Reputation Poll International and Founder of African Achievers Awards in Britain). Ignatius Sancho would approve of the list.  Miss World Angola Núria Assis said, “C’est un grand privilège d’être ici pour représenter mon pays.”

Keynote speakers were Professor Akin Akinpelu (Forbes Coaches Council in Nigeria), Dr Jola Grace Emmanuel (International Speaker and Author) and Dr Anurag Saxena (International Banker). Keynote speaker Jola Grace noted, “We are all created on purpose with a purpose: nothing just happens and aligning with your purpose brings fulfilment and peace. Your purpose was created before you was, so it cannot expire. Before we were formed in our mother’s womb, God knew us and He ordained us. He gave us our assignment, our task, our purpose way before we were formed in our mother’s womb. Sometimes God doesn’t show us the whole picture but just a snippet, expecting us to trust Him all through the journey.”

The Ceremony united leaders, visionaries and changemakers under one roof to honour service, education and the spirit of global leadership. Attendees included the ultra successful businessperson Anywhere Thompson, owner of East Walls Hotel Chichester, and Jeremie Alamazani, Founder and Chief Executive of Wealth Partners Ltd. Jeremie shared, “I understood that my colour could be an issue, could be a problem with certain people but the way to minimise your colour is to increase your skill. When you get on a plane you don’t ask the colour of the pilot or his faith. You want a professional. And when you reach a certain level people are checking more your value – what you are bringing to the marketplace – more so than your colour.”

Jeremie continued, “So I knew that my colour could come as a way to explain why I was not given something, why I was slowed down in a process. Still, try to be the best you can and they will not be able to avoid you regardless of what they think of you. So I don’t expect to be loved, I don’t want to be loved. I want you to respect me because I’m good at what I do.” A Myles University Initiative discussed after the Ceremony was Project Educate 1,000. This initiative supports worldwide access to higher education for underprivileged children. Its mission is to empower five million youths by 2045. Jeremie is a Trustee of the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust and has many community commitments in Africa including financially supporting the Mere Teresa de Calcutta Primary School in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dame Mary Martin, Founder and Chief Executive of Mary Martin London, the international fashion house, also supports many charitable causes including teaching underprivileged children in London to sew and make clothes. At the Ceremony, Mary was recognised with a Golden Plaque for her leadership and continuing contribution to British and international fashion. Earlier this year she was made a Dame of the Knightly Order Valiant of St George. Even earlier this year Mary was crowned Diaspora Queen Mother Mama Nenyo I by the Ewe Kingdom Chiefs of Benin, Nigeria, Togo and Ghana. Last year, Atlanta City Council declared the first Saturday in December to be Mary Martin Appreciation Day. The third Monday of January every year in Atlanta is Martin Luther King Junior Day.

Categories
Art Design Fashion People

Marie Antoinette + Victoria + Albert Museum London

Tomorrow is Not Another DayHigh camp and high treason, glamour and gore, makeup stories and made up stories, big wigs and bigwigs, political incorrectness and incorrect politics, the Marie Antoinette show at the Victoria and Albert Museum is a fitting and well fitted tribute to la dernière Reine de France. It’s the first ever British exhibition dedicated to the anglophile royal.

“Marie Antoinette is the most fashionable queen in history,” sparks curator Dr Sarah Grant so there are plenty of frocks on display. Long before she was incarcerated in Temple Gaol, Marie Antoinette was a prisoner of the largest gilded cage in history. Shipped off aged 14 from her home in Austria to be married to her cousin, becoming Queen at 18, she was never allowed to leave France. Courtiers updated her on the latest London trends.

“This was a woman whose choices practically generated the industry around couture and jobs for thousands of people,” barks Manolo Blahnik, one of the show’s sponsors. Hers was a rarefied vision unrivalled by subsequent regal patronage. Yet when she opted for simpler muslin dresses and straw hats in the 1780s over the ostentatious court gowns she had previously popularised, the silk merchants accused her of abandoning their industry.

More than 230 years after her death it’s hard to distinguish between the wild fiction and wilder truth. Myths are immortal. She almost definitely didn’t suggest the poverty stricken should stick to calorific sweet stuff but wouldn’t it be fun if she really did quip “I do take little care of my appearance”? Real letters trump fake news. Marie Antoinette’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa, admonished her in a letter of September 1776, “All the news from Paris is that … your finances are in disarray and weighed down with debt.”

Frivolity not form follows function when it comes to her choice of gardening tools. But hey a girl has to look good even when digging up soil! Her harpsichord is a reminder that Marie Antoinette was more than a clotheshorse. She was an accomplished musician and popularised the salon concert. A chair represents her interest in interior decoration: the Louis XVI furniture style is named after the wrong marriage partner. Seize that Seize!

But a headless dressed dummy is a harbinger of the horror ahead. Turn the corner into the penultimate exhibition space and in place of a crinoline is a smock. Next to a guillotine. A neon sign contains her words of August 1793 “Nothing can hurt me now”. She would be killed two months later. Aged 37, the Queen of Arts lived one year longer than the future Queen of Hearts.

Turn the next corner for a posthumous party. Today is a new day. True fashion never dies. Just ask John Galliano.

Categories
Design Luxury People

Autumn Collection + Kartell South Kensington London

Intelligence Service

Trust Phillippe Starck to be ahead of the curve. The trailblazing French designer has collaborated with leading Italian brand Kartell to produce the first ever chair design to be conceived and drawn up by AI. Philippe asked the computer programme Autodesk: “AI, do you know how we can rest our bodies using the least amount of material?” The outcome is a stylish curvaceous seat based on an injection moulding production that uses 100 percent recycled plastic.

Generative design is an explorative technology that allows creators and engineers to input their goals along with parameters such as materials, manufacturing methods and cost constraints. Autodesk then explores all the possible permutations of a solution to generate design alternatives. The software tests and learns from each iteration what works and what doesn’t. The AI Chair is a fitting addition to the Kartell London store. Kartell’s Autumn Collection includes Philippe’s sleek super glossy HHH Chair. Also made of recycled plastic, the seat is available in reused leather or Liberty fabrics. The initials stand for Her Highest Highness. A dauphine worthy piece of furniture.

The flagship London store is fittingly opposite Brompton Square where Min Hogg, the innovative Founding Editor of The World of Interiors, once called home. There are instantly recognisable pieces on display (Philippe’s Louis Ghost and Victoria Ghost Chairs) as well as new pieces (his Cap Table Lamp). Other designers represented include Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba (Albert Table) and Patricia Urquiola (Aaland Pouff). Rodolfo Dordoni, Ferruccio Laviani, Piero Lissoni and Fabio Novembre are the masterminds behind the Kartell Eyewear Design Collection.

AI continues to affect every aspect of modern life. Leana Wen wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post 7 October 2026 “AI might be our best hope to fix healthcare”. She stated, “Now, however, the country has a new reason for hope: artificial intelligence. That’s the big idea in health informaticist Dr Charlotte Blease’s new book Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us — and How AI Can Save Lives. ‘The medical community needs to show leadership here,’ Blease told me. ‘We’ve got to stop sticking our heads and stethoscopes in the sand.’” Philippe Starck and Kartell are sticking their heads above the AI designed parapet.

Categories
Art Design People

Brompton Design District South Kensington London + Tender Revolution

Another Place

Sunday afternoon painters have their place – usually with still lifes and landscapes – but how riveting to see the cutting edge of contemporary art in Brompton Design District. A Softer World, this year’s curated strand, is directed by British Italian writer and gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker. Exhibitions, installations, talks and workshops explore design through empathy, tactility and interdisciplinary collaboration. His emotionally resonant approach challenges how we experience and respond to the material sphere. In a world that often demands certainty and control, A Softer World posits: what if design moved with care and made space for us to do the same?

A most exciting exhibition – or is it multiple installations? – is at 237 Brompton Road. Tender Revolution showcases furniture, textiles and objects by designers, artists and makers from the Royal College of Art. It presents design as an act of care, connection and rebirth. The participating creatives challenge rigid systems that suppress complexity and erase stories beyond the binary. They embrace contradiction, vulnerability and embodied experience as powerful sites of renewal.

“The designer of today reestablishes the long lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing. Instead of pictures for the drawing room, electric gadgets for the kitchen. There should be no such thing as art divorced from life, with beautiful things to look at and hideous things to use. If what we use every day is made with art, and not thrown together by chance or caprice, then she shall have nothing to hide.” Not a contemporary commentary but rather 29 years old relevance written by Bruno Munari in Design as Art. Tender Revolution succeeds by inviting us in thought provoking and sometimes even humorous ways to reimagine the role of design in shaping more compassionate futures – that are free of chance and caprice.

Featured exhibitors: Ana Maria Alarcón, Carmen Danae Azor, Alexander Clark, Avis Dou, Natalie Dubrovska, Ruwanthi Gajadeera, Audra Grays, Linlin Guan, Menghyan Guo, Miyuki Guo, Ruikun Guo, Lydia Hill, Shino Hitosugi, Sahym Hussain, Huili Jin, Patrycja Koziara, Hyein Lee, Maxim Lester, Lydia Lin, Alexandre Manko, Luca Maremmi, Eileen Morley, Ellen Nacey, Sofia Ortmann, Sarah Tibbles, Rosalie Valentino, Yang Xiao, Yidan Xu, Zhibo Yang, Chenrui Zhang, Zinjin Zhang, Shaming Zhang, Shumeng Zhang.

Categories
Architecture Design Developers People Restaurants Town Houses

Rémi Lazurowicz + Comptoir Lazu + Restaurant Lazu Paris

Boulevardiers on the Boulevards

Due to circumstances within our control – Paris encore une fois – we’re heading for Queer Street adjacent. We’re not over the moon about it but such is the price of expended ebullient social energy. Well beyond the faded tapestry of dawn, long after lunch, we will witness the slow transition of dusk; silver planes will be seen escaping, bright in the last sun above the darkening city. The streets will lose colour to the night. “The French take their pleasures very seriously; French chic is a high art form,” writes Ada Louise Huxtable in The Eighties, New York Review of Books, 6 April 1995.

The 9th, to coffee in Lazu (Comptoir), lunch in Lazu (Restaurant), pray in Notre Dame de Lorette (Church) and play in the bars around the casual Place José Rizal, far away from the carefully pollarded symmetries of the Jardins des Tuileries. We’re here super early in this restaurant so it’s quiet: front of house is acting waitress and sommelier. She’s fab. This is going to be a terrific lunch. Les Vins Blancs list is divided into Provence, Savoie, Alsace, Jura and Corse. It might not be ski season just yet but we’re feeling Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes so order the perfect sip from that prefecture. Domaine Louis Magnin Roussette de Savoie 2018 is bright, fresh, smoky, sharp and very good. It appears nacreous in the soft noon light. Fly Me to the Moon sung by a chanteuse is playing in the background. This is going to be a totally terrific lunch.

There are four entrées, five plats and five desserts on the menu. Our new multitasking friend produces the favourites of the day board but we’re glued to the menu. We’re always versatile so go vegan starter, pescatarian main and vegetarian pudding. Holy cow! But first a creamed cauliflower on parmesan cracker amuse bouche to commence our culinary adventure. A sack of bread and cayenne dusted butter quoin stones put the rustic into rustication.

Tartelette sablée au parmesan, pickles de girolles, Romanesco, champignons séchés, courgettes au safran, carotte et vinaigrette algre doux. A noble theme. Wow! Fillet de cabillaud Skrei rôti, cocos de Paimpol, vierge de radis roses et noirs, emulsion raifort. Wow wow! And the Norwegian Atlantic Cod even comes with our favourite bow to Michelinism: foam. As Hervé This scribes in Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavour (2002), “Low in fat because they are essentially made of air – foams came to prominence with the rise of Nouvelle Cuisine in France in the 1960s and then gained broader popularity as a consequence of the growing interest in lighter foods on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, with the advent of molecular gastronomy … they are very fashionable among connoisseurs.” Mousse au chocolat Lazu: éclats de chocolat, fleur de sel et piment d’Espeletter, huile d’olive. Wow wow wow! A coconut shortbread surprise, more nuanced than a triple entrendre, ends our gourmet voyage.

What does Monsieur Michelin have to say about Lazu? “The Chef, who was well schooled (Bruno Docuet’s second at Le Régalade), composes a well crafted bistronomique cuisine with judicious associations. While the menu changes every week, specialties such as carmelised sweetbreads and potato pâté en croûte have been enjoyed since the opening.” We say witness this materiality, solidity and substance! Well, well, how did we miss those favoured sweetbreads? Return visit required. The baked chocolate pudding served straight from the pan at our table with a side portion of olive oil is return visit worthy in itself. On y va!

Rémi Lazurowicz appears halfway through lunch for a chat even though the restaurant is now filling up with staff and customers. The charming Head Chef owner dashes across Rue Marguerite de Rochechouart from Le Comptoir to join us, full of the joys of comptoiring and restaurateuring and living. “I wanted to become a chef first and foremost,” he relates. “My cuisine is all about honesty, simplicity and freshness. I do want lots of textures and contrasts as well. I get quite a lot of English customers as we’re close to Gare du Nord.” With food, as with faces, there are moments when the forceful mystery of the inner being appears. Inwards and outwards, the lunch’s character with its inherent beauty, is in its portions and its sureness of style.

We’re entrenched in a metaphoric city continually reinventing itself to remain vital, a constant layering of cultural atrophy. Pushing beyond that immediate hinterland of desire, Eden restored. Everything tastes better in Paris. Wind inducing cauliflower becomes the breezy taste of autumn. Everything sounds better in French. Take “bricolage”: so much classier than “DIY store”. Valorisation is easy. Recalling our lunch in the 9th is like freeze framing that key moment in a film around which the whole of the narrative pivots before a spiral of hypnogogic descent. You witnessed it through us, dwellers in history. Now look: summer has turned, autumn has dropped. Lazu the moon.

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Architects Architecture Art Design People

Serpentine Galleries London + The Delusion + Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley

Human Engineering

Kensington Gardens is home to two exquisite pieces of sculptural architecture: one carved in stone; one moulded in coated glass fibre. The William Kent designed Queen Charlotte’s Temple is a 1730s symmetrical eyecatcher best viewed from the Serpentine Bridge. The Zaha Hadid designed restaurant added to the Serpentine North Gallery in 2013 takes an asymmetrical organic form which is echoed in the fluidity of the surrounding garden planned by Arabella Lennox-Boyd. Now Kensington Gardens is temporary home to an extraordinary piece of …

Enter Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine, to talk about the latest exhibition in the North Gallery which pushes all the boundaries when it comes to definitions. He says, “We are thrilled to provide Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley with a platform for her groundbreaking live experiment. The Delusion embodies everything Serpentine stands for: a place of exciting experimentation where new connections between artists and audiences come to life.” Bettina Korek, CEO of the Serpentine, adds, “Braithwaite-Shirley’s visionary use of gaming and participatory performance to explore polarisation, censorship and hope reflects the urgent conversations shaping the world today.”

The gallery is divided into a series of dimly lit spaces like twisted takes on Victorian mediums’ parlours. Handwritten questioning messages written on doylies are pinned to cushions; framed cartoons of monsters hang on the walls. London born Berlin based Danielle provides instructions: “You can experience the exhibition through three different emotional states called Delusion Loops. Each loop presents scenarios inspired by the emotional states of hope, fear and hate. Which loop comes next depends on how visitors interact with the games in the exhibition space. Each loop is accompanied by its own soundscape, different versions of the games and changing elements in the gallery environment. You will find one multiplayer game in each room. Collaborate with other players. Three games. Three loops. Infinite ways to participate.”

Ever since Carsten Höller’s 2006 installation at Tate Modern – when visitors slid down self exploratory slides – interactive art has been a progressive component of London’s art scene. In place of the sheer physicality of Carsten’s work, The Delusion invites visitors to mentally engage in hot topics through gaming machines. While it’s not guaranteed to solve geopolitics, this crossover between video games and the visual arts sure is fun.

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Architecture Art Design Fashion Luxury People Restaurants

Supporters’ House + The National Gallery Trafalgar Square London + Christmas

The Art of Buying

In 2023 it was the reboot of the National Portrait Gallery. This year it’s The National Gallery which holds the world’s preeminent collection of paintings made in the Western tradition starting in the early 13th century. Following the landmark reopening of the Sainsbury Wing in May came the launch of Supporters’ House and two newly created retail spaces. The Christmas 2025 range features many products designed inhouse and available exclusively at The National Gallery. Consumerism with a conscious: every purchase directly supports the art collection

The entrance door to Supporters’ House is to the immediate left of the portico overlooking Trafalgar Square. A rabbit warren of offices, stores and stock rooms have been opened up into four large spaces: a lounge and bar, restaurant, private dining room and salon event space. Interior designer Job Hoogervorst of Studio Linse says, “We wanted it to feel like it’s always been there. The initial wish was that it has an echo from The National Gallery.”

Revealed internal arches add a strong sense of structure to the corridor and spaces. Deep colours inspired by the permanent collection are used to saturate each space from the walls and window shutters to the ceiling. Job comments, “The place is quite architectonic so it is as if each room has been dipped in a colour.” Furniture from the archives has been repurposed and reupholstered. The original parquet floor has been restored. Studio Linse’s cultural hospitality space designing experience includes the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Gallery is also launching an international architectural competition for a new wing. This has already attracted £375 million of cash pledges including the two largest ever publicly reported single cash donations (£150 million each) to a museum or gallery. Director Sir Gabriel Finaldi states, “We are hugely excited by this development and are immensely grateful to our donors for their support – on an unprecedented scale – as The National Gallery steps into its third century. We look forward to an ever closer collaboration with Tate on this significant new initiative.”

The Painter’s Tree is a set of Christmas decorations handcrafted by Cambodian women. Felt figures include Caravaggio, Gainsborough and Rubens. The new scented edit offers soaps and hand creams traditionally made in Sussex with wrapping based on details from National Gallery paintings. Scents include Fig and Grape, Pine and Eucalyptus, and Jasmine. Details of paintings also feature on this season’s fashionwear such as Van Gogh’s famous hat embroidered on a jacket.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … to visit The National Gallery and get shopping!