Category: Art

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Architects Architecture Art Design Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Old Union Yard Arches + Bala Baya Restaurant Southwark London

Behind The Music Box

It’s a long time since Gilbert and George sang Under the Arches (1969) and an even longer time since Flanaghan and Allen did too (1941). These days, railway arches are – like every square metre in London – hot property. The Low Line. Theatres, restaurants, bars and community hubs fill the stretch from Union Street to Surrey Row known as Old Union Yard Arches.

But before the arches were redeveloped, there was, and very much still is, The Music Box. The capital’s most exciting apartments and music college scheme. Developer Taylor Wimpey Central London had the vision to commission the exciting young architecture practice Spparc (now in full bloom) to design a building that entwines architecture and music in a standout standalone standing ovation on Union Street.

A mezzanine divides the archway of Bala Baya into two levels. The ground floor is achromatic in deference to the White City of Tel Aviv. Upstairs, the exposed brick vault lends a more rustic allure. Owner Chef Eran Tibi – you guessed it – is Televivian. Interior designer Afroditi Krassa added bright terrazzo slabs from a Haifa factory. Eran says, “I wanted to walk on floors that remind me of home.” Tableware comes from one of Jaffa’s famous flea markets. The rear wall of the mezzanine is built up in perforated breeze blocks of the type you see just about everywhere in gardens in Israel. But the biggest import is the custom built pitta oven from Israeli manufacturer Jagum.

The rumble of trains overhead provides an accompaniment to dancey music. Six years old, Bala Baya still strikes the right chord with a cacophony free lunch. Putting that oven to good use, pitta is served with mezze: Pink Tamara (smoked roe, extra virgin olive oil, chives). Fish Clouds (smoked haddock fish cakes, pita crumbs, poached egg, white taramasalata, apple, fennel) are a reminder of Tel Aviv’s western coast. ‘Bala Baya’ means ‘mistress of the house’ and the pudding Lady Baharat (pink lady, salted caramel, Baharat cream, wonton) proves to be a woo worthy sweet symphony. Israeli wines are labelled “from home”. Pale straw coloured Carmel Selected Sauvignon Blanc 2020 carries aromas of tropical fruit notes against a backdrop of cut grass. Like The Music Box, the wine is aging well.

Unsurprisingly Eran is a protégé of Yotam Ottolenghi. Michael Kaminer explained in his 2017 review of Bala Baya for The New York Times, “Before he became a global brand, Yotam Ottolenghi introduced Londoners to modern Israeli food – a minor trend that has become a phenomenon.” Bala Baya is part of this movement from minor to major, taking it up another octave. Encore! Encore!

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Architecture Art Design Fashion Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Campbell-Rey + The London Edition Hotel Fitzrovia London

Club Fenderland

The multi use lobby of The London Edition was a popular concept when it first opened. A decade later, the vast space is still buzzing. It encompasses workspace, a bar, a lounge area next to an open fire, reception, billiards and – from tonight – a Christmas tree designed by Campbell-Rey. The design studio founded by Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey takes a seasonal bow to Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1816 set design for The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with its oversized Murano glass baubles in colour and mirror finishes dangling between decorations hand painted to resemble lapis, onyx, marble and malachite. The gilded star atop the tree comes straight from one of the artistic Prussian polymath’s Queen of the Night’s Hall of Stars drawings. To celebrate the unveiling of the Christmas tree, guests are serenaded by a haloed cappella choir while devouring canapés and downing cocktails.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Developers People Town Houses

Gunnersbury Park House + Gunnersbury House West London

All Features Great and Small

Why are two mansions standing cheek by jowl in west London? It must be the only park in the capital with a pair of very substantial houses almost touching each other. A complicated history of dual and overlapping ownership is the answer. It all began in the 17th century when lawyer Sir John Maynard commissioned Inigo Jones’s amanuensis John Webb to design a large square house inspired by Palladio’s Villa Badoerin in Venetia. The defining feature of this red brick with white stone highlights building was a five bay double height recessed balcony above a ground floor breakfront and below a massive pediment.

A later owner was Princess Amelia, second daughter of George II. The Temple (reflected in the Round Pond) and the Bathhouse are the two most significant extant works she had carried out. Her Royal Highness bought the house and estate in 1762 and lived there until her death 26 years later. The Doric portico fronted Temple in red brick and white stone to match the house was probably designed by Sir William Chambers in circa 1760. The Bathhouse is another estate folly, later described in 19th century sales particulars as “an ornamental diary in gothic style with a cold bath”. In 1801 the house was demolished and the estate sold in lots. Builder Alexander Morrison accumulated the lion’s share of 31 hectares while timber merchant Stephen Cosser acquired a cub’s share of three hectares.

Fashionably rusted freestanding signs strategically positioned across the park inform visitors of its history. One reads: “The Temple. The magnificent 18th century Temple is thought to have been built for Princess Amelia, daughter of George II. She used it as a place of entertainment, enjoying views that reached as far as the Kew Gardens pagoda and beyond. Alexander Copland, the estate’s next owner, played billiards and ate desserts there.”

Alexander appointed his cousin the well known architect Sir Robert Smirke to design Gunnersbury Park House (now called the Large Mansion). A few metres away from the Large Mansion and sharing the same building line, Alexander’s neighbour Stephen built Gunnersbury House (now called the Small Mansion). This long two storey building has bow windows on either side of a lawn facing verandah trimmed with Chinese bells below the eaves. After banker Nathan Rothschild bought the Large Mansion in 1835, he commissioned Sir Robert’s younger brother Sydney to enlarge his house. The three storey Large Mansion lives up to its current name. An enfilade of lawn facing ritzy reception rooms backs onto a cast iron galleried atrium. Both buildings are stuccoed.

Around the same time as designing the Large Mansion, Sir Robert worked up drawings for the Oxford and Cambridge Club on Pall Mall. The previous decade, he had designed Normanby Hall in Lincolnshire for the Sheffield family. Samantha Cameron, Britain’s former First Lady, was brought up at Normanby Hall and her father Sir Reginald Sheffield is still squire of the manor. Sir Robert is best known for the British Museum. The next generation of the Smirke dynasty would design many of the town mansions in Kensington Palace Gardens.

Pharma fortune maker Thomas Farmer bought the Small Mansion in 1827 and appointed father and son practice William Fuller and William Willner Pocock to extend the house. The Pococks also designed the Gothic Ruins Folly below Princess Amelia’s Bathhouse. In 1889, the Rothschilds bought the Small Mansion and Gunnersbury Park once again fell under single ownership. After the renaissance years of the Rothschilds (their heir Evelyn died fighting in Palestine in 1917) the estate and its buildings were bought by the local councils.

A plaque in the arch between the two mansions states: “Gunnersbury Park. Opened for the use of the public 21 May 1926 by the Right Honourable Neville Chamberlain MP Minister of Health. Purchased by the Town Councils of Action and Ealing one fourth of the cost being contributed by the Middlesex County Council. On 1 April 1927 the Brentwood and Chiswick Urban District Council joined the Action and Ealing Councils in the ownership and management of the park.” The Large and Small Mansions were converted to community use. The former building is restored; the latter, under restoration. Princess Amelia’s Bathhouse, the Temple (exterior only), Orangery, Round Pond, Horseshoe Pond and Gothic Ruins Folly have all roared back to life. Sydney Smirke’s East Stables lurk in the shadows waiting their turn.

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Art Design Luxury People

The Hideaway Sloane Place Hotel Chelsea London +

The Zone of Influence

Sloane Square is “the centre of the world” according to Ann Barr and Peter York’s Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. This essential 1980s guide was in effect an expanded update of Nancy Mitford’s 1955 “U and Non U” essay on what is upper class and what is not. Linguistics were tricky back then: “chimneypiece” was U; “mantlepiece” Non U. We sat beside Peter York at Nicky Haslam’s private gig in The Pheasantry, King’s Road, and he did emphasise it was all a bit tongue in cheek.

Sloane Square Hotel on Lower Sloane Street is equator hot in Handbook terms. It’s the launch party of The Hideaway, a basement speakeasy under Sloane Place. The Peter Jones crowd are here but everyone is more diverse less shibboleth reliant these days. Jazz musicians Bandini not to mention gallons of Moët and Chandon (thankfully the Prohibition theme isn’t taken too literally!) mean the intimate dancefloor is soon filled. The goat’s cheese macaroons are definitely U.

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Architecture Art Country Houses Design Fashion People

The Lenox-Conynghams + Springhill Moneymore Londonderry

Living Life on the Hyphen

Last of the line to live at Springhill was Mina Lenox-Conyngham. She was known as a great storyteller, even if occasionally recollections would vary, and recorded her memories for prosperity in her 1946 pot boiler An Old Ulster House and the People Who Lived In It. The delightful Springhill, now owned by The National Trust, never looked better than at dawn two springs ago. It is pure three dimensional reticent charm, falling somewhere between a grand farmhouse and a modest country house; like its last owner, living between two worlds and two words.

Stephen Gwynn provided the foreword: “Here is a book to rejoice anyone who desires to see light thrown on Irish history nonetheless revealing because it traces through nine generations the fortunes of a leading Ulster family and of a great Ulster house. The Conynghams, who became later Lenox-Conyngham, acquired land in County Derry and managed to hold it. As the years went on they were linked up with almost every prominent family in the Province and had their part in all the outstanding events.” The Lenox-Conyngham family came to Ulster from Ayrshire so really they were Scots-Irish rather than Anglo-Irish.

“Or again we have a full inventory of the plenishing – indoor and out – which furnished out Springhill in George III’s day,” ends Stephen. “In short here is a whole mine of information which tells us above all what sort of lives a representative Ulster family lived once Ulster became what we mean by Ulster – and lets us know also what kind of men and women it bred.”

Lyn Gallagher has written about the house a couple of times. In A Tour of the Properties of the National Trust in Northern Ireland, 1979, she notes, “‘To build a convenient house of lime and stone two storeys high’ was one of the obligations put upon ‘Good Will’ Conyngham when he married Miss Anne Upton in 1680, and it would seem that the charming house of Springhill dates from this period. To the rear of the house is the Bower Barn, one of the earliest buildings to be erected at Springhill, and the long narrow windows in the walls show it to have a purpose for which easy defence was not an insignificant factor. It is a house of enormous simple charm, and the warm atmosphere of old wood in the interiors is not dissipated by the fact that Springhill boasts one of the best authenticated ghosts in an Ulster home – seemingly a mother who lost seven children through smallpox still moves around here.” Dorinda, The Honourable Lady Dunleath, who spent many a childhood summer here, rolling her eyes, was more sceptical: “Aunt Mina had a good imagination!” Dorinda was not impressed when the bedroom she always stayed in at Springhill was designated “the haunted room” by The National Trust.

In Castle Coast and Cottage: The National Trust in Northern Ireland, published 13 years later, Lyn along with Dick Rogers writes, “It may be fanciful to say that a house is friendly and welcoming, but if any house fits that description, it’s Springhill, just outside Moneymore in County Londonderry. A straight avenue leads to the simple, open façade, flanked by two long, broad pavilions, with curved gables which look as if they are holding out arms of welcome. The house has an immediate charm on the affections of the visitor; it is something to do with its age – 300 years of one family’s occupation – and something to do with the scale and the charm of small details, like the arched gateway, with a curly iron gate, at the top of a flight of worn steps leading from the carpark into the wide enclosed forecourt, with immaculately raked gravel.”

They’ve more to offer: “Springhill is essentially an Ulster house. Architectural historians have commented on the slightly hesitant way in which the basically classical front is treated – with narrower, two paned windows in the centre, a typical 17th century Ulster feature – and have noted how the 18th century bow extensions give it more assurance. One commentator, Alistair Rowan, describes it as ‘one of the prettiest houses in Ulster, not grand or elaborate in its design, but with very the air of a French provincial manor house.’ Its lack of pretension is its hallmark, and the rear of the house is described as ‘a comfortable jumble of roofs, slate hung walls and chimneys … with a big round headed window on the staircase the most prominent feature.’” A vintage photograph shows the window frames painted fully black rather than just the outer frames black which created an even more distinctive appearance and greater contrast with the white walls. The photograph also shows the pavilion wings were left unpainted which emphasised their subsidiary role to the house.

“Fabulous finials!” exclaims Nick, a character in Alan Hollinghurst’s 1998 novel The Spell. He could have been talking about the roof decorations of the pavilion wings of Springhill. The finials encapsulate the dichotomous essence of the house: they are grand but are embellishing functional farm outbuildings. Author and former Architectural Editor of Country Life magazine, Jeremy Musson, told us when researching Springhill he learned that Mina Lenox-Conyngham had reversed her mother-in-law’s arrangement and swapped the more recent furniture on the main two floors with all the “old fashioned 17th century furniture” stored in the attic. “The family never threw anything out!” Jeremy records. The library collection of over 5,000 books (some with calfskin covers) on everything from theology to ornithology is one of the best of its kind in Ulster. On the raised ground floor, the contrast between the 17th century entrance hall, staircase hall, study and library with the 18th century drawing room and dining room is one of scale, grandeur and decoration. Dark panelling and lowish ceilings in the former; chunky cornicing and high ceilings in the latter. Jeremy’s piece on Springhill was published in “the recording angel of country houses” (his words) of Country Life in 1996.

We first visited Springhill 30 odd years ago, armed with a polaroid camera. That photographic record, which shall remain unpublished, was of mixed result. Our second visit, in 2010, this time armed with a Canon camera, was on a particularly unphotogenic day of pale grey skies. Thank goodness for the sun blessed spring of 2022. You can never have too much of a good thing, so our latest visit is on another sun struck day, this time in the autumn of 2023. A walk round the gardens; a browse in the second hand bookshop; a look at the costume museum; a tour of the house; coffee and cake in the converted stables. Life at Springhill is immeasurably good.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Africa Fashion Week London 2023 + Mary Martin London

Angelic Forces at Work and Play

Mary Martin London headlined this year’s Africa Fashion Week London. Mary’s fashion is never superficial and always thought provoking, making statements on social and historic issues from class to slavery. She explained to us, “My collection this year is called Divine Intervention. It’s about a dream I had of the angels in heaven. Everything was cream and gold – it was an amazing experience. So my collection is all cream and gold. My final catwalk piece this year was the Ozone Dress. Swiss model Aïda wore a white wig with twigs coming out of it symbolising the clouds of pollution rising from the earth. The glittering dress is a copper earthquake. This is what is going on in the world. We need to stop it or the human planet will look like that!”

Two other models walking for Mary Martin London were six footer mother and daughter team Renée and Janeé Knorr. As well as being an international model, Renée is the founder of Global Women Wealth Warriors. “Our ultimate purpose is to help others to become whole in finance and spirituality as well as mental and physical wellbeing.” Based in New Orleans, Renée uses her 14 years’ banking experience to teach financial literacy. She recently told Peachtree TV, “The meaning of being a global woman is to harness beliefs that allow you to soar without any regrets. I am a global impact thought leader in fashion, finance and wellness.” She flew from Tanzania via Dubai to be at the fashion show. “Connecting with the motherland is so important. But I’m grateful to be here right now in London!”

International model, basketball player and burgeoning businessperson Janeé, who is based in Atlanta, added, “Other countries underestimate the power that African fashion has. I watch many top designers at work and when it comes to African designers they truly are about energy and innovation. Mary has that vibrance and power too. I am so proud to be wearing clothes from the latest collection. Her dresses move so beautifully on the catwalk. They’re so elegant yet easy to wear. I’m excited!”

And sure enough, the Divine Intervention Collection is earth shatteringly heavenly. The word “angel” is mentioned 290 times in the Bible. It looked like a few were visiting the human planet as the models glided down the catwalk in a glow of effervescence. Renée did fierce in one of Mary’s famous masks. “This is very appropriate,” she had told us backstage. “We love mask balls in New Orleans!” Janeé strutted her genetically blessed stuff. And then came Aïda Ouro Madeli. Time stood still as she posed in the Ozone Dress. This dress constantly changed colour as it reflected lights and cameras flashing. It appeared to spark and ignite. Mary is all about the metaphor. The Ozone Dress reflected all of us; we are in this together; and we all can have our angelic moments.

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Architecture Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Africa Fashion Week London 2023 +

The Heritage Generation

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, Africa Fashion Week London upped sticks from Freemasons’ Hall Covent Garden to the Institute of Directors Pall Mall: from the Grand Lodge to the Even Grander Lodge. Three days packed to the Corinthian cornice. The ground floor was filled with a bazaar, the staircase became a photoshoot set; upstairs, it was all about the gallery for socialising, Abura Cocktail and Art Bar (Procero gin from Nairobi or South Africa Xwai rum anyone?), another bazaar; makeup salons and changing rooms popped up in the ancillary wing; and of course the vast saloon looking across Waterloo Place to The Athenaeum Club was – lights, cameras, curtains pulled, action! – transformed into the coolest catwalk in town.

Dr Mark Prince OBE, CEO and Founder of the Kiyan Prince Foundation, spoke movingly to us all at the opening of the conference on his work supporting young people. The charity was borne out of tragedy in memory of his 15 year old son’s murder in 2006. “This is God’s creation!” he exclaimed opening his arms to the room. “We feel like family tonight. I was misplaced – I was homeless at 15 yet I changed my life around. God put Kiyan on earth to do good things and we are still doing good things through the Foundation in Kiyan’s honour. My best friend now is the Master of the Universe.” Charity and fashion can go hand in hand.

After this thought provoking speech, Queen Ronke, Founder of Africa Fashion Week London and the Adire Oodua Textile Hub (which empowers female entrepreneurs), introduced a panel probing the most pressing questions of the day. Is Africa fashion’s final frontier? Is there a growing consumer market in Africa ready to buy? Can Africa realistically serve the international market? Whatever the answers are, Africa Fashion Week London is playing a leading role. The four Corinthian columns of this movement are African Sourcing for African Development Sourced in Africa, Made in Africa, Trade in Africa and Build in Africa.There were over 30 spectacular catwalk shows. Creative Director of Iffizi and human rights lawyer Sandra Vermuijten-Alonge stormed it in high energy style. Taking a bow, she put the run into runway, somersaulting down it in truly acrobatic style. Sandra bears more than a passing resemblance to the singer Pink so she was on form in her pink top, skirt and matching trainers. She lives in Victoria Island, Nigeria. Sandra shared,

“Iffizi is made to measure fashion for bold and fabulous ladies: made in Nigeria, designed in Belgium. We use African fabrics and tailoring infused with European style. Iffizi is for women who embrace their own identity and want to dress with elegance, grace and a big smile! There’s no ideal shape as ‘big fashion’ would have us believe. Iffizi puts women first, delivering exclusive custom made clothes that fit women and not the other way round. Our fashion is what I want to wear to work and to go out, feeling confident and feminine. Iffizi exudes a positive – we are one people. Let’s make this world a brighter place!” As for the name, Iffizi combines Efizy which in Yoruba means “cool, trendy, stylish” and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence which represents European historic culture. One third of Iffizi’s profits are reinvested in youth employment schemes training tailors and providing master classes in fashion. The handshake of charity and fashion once more.

There were so many other memorable catwalk moments. Mumini’s unveiling of the Sierra Leone flag; Elpis Megalio’s skeletal frame skirt; Ruby Dawn’s leopard skin short shorts; Enadia Igbin’s sheer red dress; Hertunba’s model designer fusion; Abaake by Equip’s age is no barrier. Menswear was well represented too. David Wej revealed his latest men’s collection. He established his eponymous brand in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2008. His seventh international outlet is on Great Portland Street London. Hanging high up on the wall of the saloon in a gilt frame, Sir Luke Fildes’ 1908 portrait of Queen Alexandra stared down with unmoving eyes.

Music played an even bigger role at this year’s event. Live drummers kept us all in party form. DJ Homeboy rocked the catwalk with Afrobeats and remixes from trance (for Elpis Megalio’s show) to chilled (for Ik-Pen’s). Old school favourites added spice such as Abba’s Xanadu (for Iffizi) and Alice Deejay’s Better Off Alone (Pa Masu). Best of all the final and most fabulous of all the designers – who could that be? – had her own theme tune by DJ Déjà Vu. Mary Martin London shares her knowledge and skills with the elderly at a local community centre in southeast London, when she isn’t working on her latest haute couture collection. Her charitable efforts in educating young people in Ghana has earned her the honorary title of Queen Mother bestowed upon her by Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

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Art Fashion People

Africa Fashion Week London 2023 + Portraits

The Fashion Despatches Have Begun

A day at the face track.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Queen Ronke + Lavender’s Blue

Haute Monde

Ife is an ancient Yoruba city in southwest Nigeria believed to date from between the 10th century BC and 6th century BC. It has a population of just over half a million and is located about 220 kilometres from Lagos. Ife is famous as a centre of the arts, especially for its ancient bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures. Queen Ronke Ademiluyi-Ogunwusi of Ife is the contemporary embodiment of this creativity, in serene and regal form. Her Royal Majesty was born into royalty as a Princess (her great grandfather was Ooni Ademiluyi) so marrying the 51st Ooni of Ife, counted first among the Yoruba monarchs, continues her life in palaces, when she’s not travelling for work.

After studying law at Thames Valley University she decided to follow her passion and work in fashion. “I’m in love with Western designs but I look to Africa for inspiration,” Queen Ronke shares. “Africa has 3,000 tribes and each tribe has its own unique fashion culture. In Nigeria we have around 500 ethnic groups all with their own fashions. I think we are only scratching the surface so far with African fashion!”

One of her royal roles is as Cultural Ambassador and in 2016 she visited President Bola Tinubu (then Lagos State Governor) to explain the initiatives of African Fashion Week Nigeria which she had just established. “Immediately he supported it,” Queen Ronke confirms, “and also reached out to others who could support it because he believes in the creative sector. He knows the development a nation can gain from small and medium enterprises. If you look at the fashion, hair, makeup and music industries you can see how the value chain grows our national wealth tremendously.”

Queen Ronke is at the Institute of Directors on London’s Pall Mall for Africa Fashion Week London which she launched 12 years ago. It has grown from strength to strength year on year and now hosts 30 catwalk shows, a conference, an awards ceremony and retail outlets. Her Royal Majesty looks suitably resplendent in her own designs. She confirms, “My position comes with my appearance as the wife of the King. You must keep up that appearance because you’re representing your husband wherever you are. If you’re dressed in jeans or not dressed in a proper manner it would have an adverse effect. People feel that being born royal I must always know better.”

Africa Fashion Week London is now Europe’s largest showcase of design from Africa and the African diaspora. “It’s a collaborative catwalk, exhibition and business development programme,” she summarises. “I want to highlight emerging designers and bring awareness of Africa’s burgeoning fashion industry to the international market.” The life and work of Her Royal Majesty Queen Ronke Ademiluyi-Ogunwusi of Ife combines beauty and intelligence, style and substance, heritage and commerce. And she knows how to make an entrance.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Design Museum London + The Offbeat Sari

Indian Spring

Unravelling its forms, revealing it as a layered metaphor for the subcontinent, an exhibition at the Design Museum London brings together 90 of the finest saris of our time from designers, craftspeople and wearers in India. The sari is an unstitched drape wrapped around the body; its unfixed form has allowed it to morph and absorb changing cultural influences. Versatility is key: it can be wrapped, knotted, pleated, tucked or divided in two, either highlighting or concealing the body. Contemporary designers are experimenting with hybrid forms such as sari gowns and dresses as well as innovative materials like woven steel and distressed denim.

Curator of The Offbeat Sari exhibition Priya Khanchandani says, “The sari is experiencing what is conceivably its most rapid reinvention in a 5,000 year history. It makes the sari movement one of today’s most important global fashion stories yet little is known of its true nature beyond south Asia. Women in cities who previously associated the sari with dressing up are transforming it into fresh everyday clothing. For me and for so many others, the sari is of personal and cultural significance. It is a rich dynamic canvas for innovation, encapsulating the vitality and eclecticism of Indian culture.”

The most striking piece was made for the billionaire businessperson Natasha Poonawalla to wear to the 2022 New York Met Gala. An embroidered tuile sari with a train designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee was worn over a gold Schiaparelli bodice, bridging the gap between fashion and sculpture. This was stylist Anaita Shroff Adajania’s interpretation of the Met Gala dress code Gilded Glamour. All bases are covered at this exhibition from haute couture to street fashion. There’s even a sari for rock climbing.

The exhibition isn’t just about the finished products: Ajrakh is an ancient method of hand carved wooden block printing that traditionally uses motifs based on Islamic geometry. Sample blocks are on display. A silk sari may be typically designed using a dozen or more blocks and then will undergo a complex process of printing and dyeing using natural pigments. The Offbeat Sari is yet another revealing fashion exhibition at the Design Museum London.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Mary Martin London + Sustainability

Harbour Lights

Back at our home from home, Chelsea Harbour, we catch up with the Queen of Fashion. It’s the eve of Africa Fashion Week London – she’s headlining a catwalk of Africa and the African diaspora’s very finest. Before all the glitz and glamour, funk and fantasy, jazz and pizzazz, Mary talks to us about the serious side of her fashion artistry: sustainability. At the most fundamental level, her clothes are made to last. But there are multiple layers (pun) to her green credentials.

“I care passionately about sustainability, the environment, the climate emergency and nature. My eponymous fashion label Mary Martin London (MML) reflects these passions. MML could easily stand for Materials Made for Life! I also greatly care about Africa and again my clothes reflect this interest. While many of my models are either from Africa or the African diaspora, I employ and attract a diverse talent: one of my first catwalk models was Polish while I also have mature female Irish clients.”

“I am from a family of 13 siblings and am the second youngest of six sisters so as a child I got used to wearing ‘hand me downs’. I would give these fifth hand clothes my own spin by adding individual accessories. I have been collecting old fabrics from the 1970s. I recently bought factory leftovers of linen which I will use for my next collection.”

“My Queen of Africa dress is an aesthetic interpretation of the countryside: the colourway of this dress represents brown for earth, green for grass and yellow for the sun. My Cecil the Lion dress came about when I heard the tragic news story from Zimbabwe of a lion maimed and killed by a recreational big game hunter. Layers of tulle around the neck and shoulders represent Cecil’s mane. The back of the dress has got the silkiness and fineness of the lion’s body.”

“I also draw and make my own prints. For my first men’s collection, I designed a print called Slaves in the Trees. I researched the Himba Tribe in Namibia and discovered they use a lot of orange face paint and hair mud. Orange is for the vibrance of earth and black is for the unseen missing elements. Orange represents the sun, the happiness outside. The print also commemorates the suffering inflicted during the slave trade.”

“Many of my dresses have historical inspiration which ties in with the sustainable use of recycled materials and reimagining vintage pieces. Last September I organised a fashion shoot of The Return Collection at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This collection was in part inspired by Georgian costume and aristocracy. Except in my imagination the black models are now the reigning grand aristocracy! The Grand Staircase and Durbar Court provided the perfect backdrop for these extravagant clothes. The collection reuses sequins from old costumes.”

“I continue to research and look for new methods to reinvent old materials in exciting ways. My passion for sustainability, the environment, the climate emergency, nature and of course Africa drives me to be ever more creative, stretching my imagination and skills. I make clothes to last: they represent the antithesis of the throwaway culture. Mary Martin London is all about making the world a better, more exciting and more caring place for current and future generations.”

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Art Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Nate Freeman + The London Edition Hotel Punch Room Fitzrovia London

The Second Age of Umber

“You must not ever stop being whimsical.” Staying Alive by Mary Oliver, 2016.

When New Yorker Nate Freeman, ArtTactic podcaster and Vanity Fair writer, comes to town where does he go and what does he do? Why, he fills the Punch Room in The London Edition with 100 of the capital’s brightest. Punch and conversation flow while supper is served. Gruyere and thyme tartlets and tuna kimchi seaweed canapés to be precise. Waving goodbye to Nate and the revellers, the following morning it’s the Sheraton Grand Park Lane Hotel for Women Leading Real Estate. And for breakfast? Canapés of course.

“And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility of your life.” Still Staying Alive by Mary Oliver, 2016.

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Art Design Luxury People Restaurants

The Portrait Restaurant St Martin’s Place London + Richard Corrigan

The Artists as Youngish Men

Chop chop! Who’s slicing and dicing and spicing the veg? Grand Chef Richard Corrigan himself. Next thing he’s marching over to our table: “Here’s mash to celebrate being Irish!” There’s mash and there’s Made in The Portrait by Richard Corrigan Mash. Its sunny complexion is what Nancy Lancaster would call “buttah yellah”. Picture perfect. The best olive oiled potato money can buy and even better when it’s on the (pent) house. Funday Sunday set lunch is best eaten while floating above the Mary Poppins roofscape over Trafalgar Square in a cloud of fervent luxury.

Richard’s menu is imaginative and concise with just four or five options per course. Keeping it vegetarian, today’s choices for lunch are burrata (peach, fennel, pistachio), conchigliette (cauliflower, Spenwood) and goat’s milk ice cream (English cherries, Riesling). This top floor new restaurant really is the English cherry on the icing on the cake that is the revamped National Portrait Gallery. Chop chop! It’s time to go dancing.

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Architects Architecture Art Design People Town Houses

Asamhaus + Asamkirche Munich

The Maximalists

It’s amazing what Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam managed to pack into just 176 square metres of Munich cityspace. Visual feast … aesthetic wonder … treasure trove … dusting nightmare … phrases fail to fully describe the interior of Asamkirche. This is late baroque at its most brilliant. Built as a private chapel adjoining Asamhaus, their home next door, after popular demand the brothers opened it to the public.

Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin were two of the nine children of Hans Georg Asam, the wealthy resident painter of Benediktbeuem Abbey in Upper Bavaria. The brothers were apprentices under their father. Their talents were perfectly complementary: Cosmas Damian worked as a painter and sculptor; Egid Quirin, as architect, stuccodore and sculptor. The pair took on many public commissions but it is at Asamkirche, which they dedicated to St John of Nepomuk, that they had free rein to go wild. And wild they went.

The façade of Asamhaus can be seen along Sendlingerstrasse but Asamkirche is today shrouded in scaffolding. That makes the interior come as an even bigger surprise. It’s a 1740s visual tornado of painted cherubs and gold plated skeletons and barley twist columns, stuccoed and frescoed and marbleised to within a square millimetre of its life. Words don’t do it justice, but Gesamtkunstwerk goes some way.

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Architects Architecture Art Design People

St Ursula’s Church Munich + August Thiersch

The Greatest Quadriptych

It’s called the “Cathedral of Schwabing”. This late 19th century building is a prime example of Rundbogenstil, the German round arch historic revival style which combines Byzantine, Renaissance and Romanesque architecture. St Ursula’s is a basilica in brick. A treasure house of ancient and contemporary ecclesiastical art, not least Spanish artist Pepe Vives’ mixed media on wood quadriptych Grabchristus (2020). The only guidebook is written in German by Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke so over to an online auto translation:

“In the 19th century, Schwabing experienced a rapid change from a village to a city. The village centre around the old St Ursula Church at the English Garden (today St Sylvester) expanded to the west and north. Industrial plants such as the Maffei machine factory partially replaced the previous agricultural economy, and workers moved to Schwabing. The barren fields and pastures west of today’s Leopoldstrasse became building land which was masterplanned with a road network. As the university and the art academy on the northern border of Munich became more important, the population rose in just a few decades from 1,667 (1885) to over 11,500 (1890). The boom led to Schwabing’s short term status as an ‘indirect city’ (1887 to 1890). It was then incorporated into Munich and became one of the most popular districts.”

“The small village church couldn’t keep up with the crowds. After calls for a new building had already been made in the 1860s, the initiative took shape in 1879: the Schwabing masterbuilder Josef Vasek drew the first plan for a new building on the site of the former St Nikolai Infirmary. When this was rejected by the Royal Building Authority, the young architecture professor August Thiersch was brought in to ‘improve’ it in 1880. The order marked the beginning of difficult planning that lasted more than a decade with different designs and submission. Only when Dr Peter Erlacher, Priest of St Ursula’s (1886 to 1920), acquired an undeveloped piece of land in 1888, was Thiersch able to design his building on Kaiserplatz: a north facing church with symmetrical annexes that were to be connected to the church by porticos. The Munich Planning Office under Theodor Fischer responded to these plans by laying out the north south route of Friedrichstrasse in such a way that it enabled a distant view of the façade if St Ursula’s. The church thus became a defining focal point for the new Schwabing.”

“The architect August Thiersch (1843 to 1917) came from well known family in Bavaria. His grandfather Fredrich had been President of the Academy of Sciences in Munich under King Ludwig I. The young August, who spent his last years of school in Munich, received a humanistic education based on classical ideals. After studying at the Polytechnic and Engineering Schools, the two forerunners of today’s Technical University of Munich, he initially worked as an engineer and then developed a particular interest in new construction techniques. He completed his architecture studies in 1872 while working as an assistant for the architect Gottfried von Neureuther.”

“Among Thiersch’s publications, his renowned Handbook of Architecture (1883) stands out. Following in the footsteps of architectural theorists of the 15th and 16th centuries, he searched for the foundations of harmony in architecture and found them in clear numerical relationships and formal analogies. His largest church building, St Ursula’s, is based on the 1:2 ratio. The church is a built model of Thiersch’s theory of proportions and is therefore of great importance for architectural theory at the transition to modernity. In this point it surpasses Thiersch’s other churches in Augsburg, Berchtesgaden, Eichstatt and Zürich.”

“At the laying of the foundation stone on 23 September 1894 a perspective was published showing Thiersch’s vision of the future Kaiserplatz. The church was planned as a triple aisled cross shaped basilica with a porch, crossing dome and freestanding tower. To the west and east were to be cubic two storey residential buildings connected to the church via open arcades. The proportions of these buildings were carefully determined according to Thiersch’s theory of proportions so that they should result in a harmonious ensemble. However the execution only partially corresponded to these plans: only the east annex building, the rectory was built; the western one fell victim to austerity measures. The long unused buildings site to the west was leased in 1959 and a student residence, Pater Rupert Mayer Home, was built on it. the open façade on the east side was changed to a closed corridor with individual rooms off it. As a result of these interventions, the open symmetrical and cheerful planned square suffered greatly. However the route emphasising the central axis and the bordering of the church square counteract this shortcoming.”

“Before the completion of the church construction (it was consecrated on 10 October 1897), two structural problems had to be overcome: the construction of the crossing dome and the belltower. After Thiersch had considered various construction techniques for the dome, he decided on the most innovative solution: a double shell tambor dome made of two different concrete masses. The inner dome was made of aerated concrete; the outer dome which is visible from a distance was made of harder saturated concrete material. The attached lantern is a small domed structure made of sandstone. Red roof tiles laid on the outer dome shell are reminiscent of the dome of the Florentine Cathedral.”

“In 1933 damage occurred to the roof and dome shells, so ring anchors were installed at the base of the dome and another layer of concrete added to the roof. These measures led to further damage over the course of the 20th century – deformation of the carbonated concrete shells and the formation of cracks – so that they were undone in an extensive restoration from 2011 to 2018. First the lantern was dismantled, then the concrete layer from 1933 removed, the cracks filled, and the other dome shell reinforced with a new concrete layer connected to the old. A new tiled roof on a slatted frame was attached to the dome.”

“The slender 64 metre high belltower was originally intended to be freestanding in the style of an Italian campanile. Apparently though during construction, concerns arose about its stability. That is why a bridge room was built between its ground floor and the transept. The tower was so endangered because of its construction materials (unplastered bricks with sandstone cornices), the concrete staircase and the heavy steel bells hung in 1948 that during the early 21st century restoration a steel skeleton had to be installed to stabilise the walls and support the steps. At the same time, the Perner Bell Foundry in Passau manufactured four new lighter bronze bells which were mounted in the reconstructed wooden belfry. Instead of the two bell hood initially planned by Thiersch, the tower has a pyramidal pointed helmet. Thiersch took the church of Santo Spirito in Florence as a model.”

“When you walk along Freidrichstrasse towards St Ursula’s, the brick red dome and the slender campanile catch your eye from afar; as you get closer, the elegant two storey façade of the basilica made of exposed brick with sandstone components catches your eye. Standing on Kaiserplatz, you can see that the central axis of the façade, which is framed by pilasters, is decorated with Christian imagery. The pediment contains a mosaic by Karl Ule (1858 to before 1939) designed by the painter Wilhelm Volz (1855 to 1901). It shows the Lamb of God in a wreath carried by angels. Below, a stone statue of Christ by Balthasar Schmitt (1858 to 1942) is enthroned in a shell niche. There are also tiny scenes on vases in the pilaster reliefs of the parables of the Good Samarian (Luke 10:25 to 37) and the Return of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11 to 32). The busts are of the prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Two portico and steps are now popular places for sun seeking residents. Events also often taken place on this ‘stage’.”

“If you walk around the church to the east, you first pass the simple rectory and parish office and in its garden is one of the removed bells. Walk along the wall of the parish garden and you reach the east transept. This elevation is classically structured with a pediment and oculus, and a large round window reminiscent of an ancient thermal bath window in a semicircular flat niche. The tympanum, which was executed by Heinrich Waderé (1865 to 1950), contains figures of the Madonna adored by the old Simeon and Hanna. The low cross shaped sacristy, which is to the northeast between the choir and the transept, has its own apse with arched windows. The west side of the church is largely blocked by the student dormitory building, but you can see the upper parts of the transept front. Before you end the outside tour stand again in front of the steps to the south and you can see the walled up portal on the west wall of the church above the courtyard entrance. This was supposed to lead to the unexecuted colonnade connecting the western annex to the church.”

“If you enter the church through the east vestibule you first stand in the staircase hall to the organ gallery. You case the last completed stained glass window executed by Ludwig Kirchmayr in 1897. Next to the door is a memorial plaque to the architect August Thiersch. If you continue to the left into the nave, you get the first impression of the long axis of the space. The nave is separated by the aisles by arched arcades on composite columns. Above this are arched windows which original had coloured borders. Like its inspiration Santo Spirito, the colours are very reserved.”

“In the south wall you enter the former baptismal chapel through an elaborate wooden grille. It was converted into a prayer room by architect Helmut Rudolf in 2005. The room had lost its original function because the baptismal font had been moved to the southeast crossing column decades ago. The baptismal font, sculpted in early Renaissance forms, dates from 1898. The circular altar island rises over three steps in the centre of the crossing. It was built in 1979 to accommodate the powerful celebration altar by Thomas Otto Munz (1929 to 2011). Associated with the altar is the gilded wooden cross by Maria Munz-Natterer (2008), a highly abstracted crucifix that shows Christ as King with huge stigmata.”

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Residenzpost + Louis Vuitton Espace Munich

Suited and Rebooted

There’s more to Louis Vuitton than branded suitcases. In 2014 the Fondation Louis Vuitton opened in Bois de Boulogne Paris. This is a major cultural and artistic institution embodying the company’s philanthropic commitment to support the arts. Gallery offshoots of the Fondation are springing up in world cities. Hot on the high heels of Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and Venice comes Espace Munich.

“While all Espaces follow a shared global vision, they are tightly intertwined with their local context,” explains Chairman and CEO Michael Burke. Espace Munich is set behind the retained façade of the Palais Toerring-Jettenbach. Designed by Bavarian court architect Leo von Klenze, this neoclassical building was badly hit in World War II. The rebuilt arcaded and frescoed façade provides an architectural punctuation stop to the west end of Maximilianstrasse (“millionaires’ street”!). The current exhibition is As Slow As Possibles by American film artist Sarah Morris.

An architectural model of Fondation Louis Vuitton is on display in the lobby linking the gallery to the store. Michael explains, “This magnificent ‘vessel’ in the Jardin d’Acclimatation Park was designed by the Pritzker Prize winning architect Frank Gehry. It is a technological feat that pushes the boundaries of architecture with its 12 glass sails enveloping ‘icebergs’ on a vast reflecting pool.” The store reassuringly still contains branded suitcases.

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Art Luxury Restaurants

Munich +

A Foreign City in a Faraway Land

Munich is so far south it’s twice the distance from Berlin as it is from Zürich. The German city is slightly closer to the equator than Paris. Salzburg is signposted out of the centre. Little wonder it’s so metropolitan. When in Munich … Nothing tastes as good as skinny fries (in Bayerischer Hotel of course). Except for strawberry tart (in Brioche Dorée overlooking a rainy courtyard behind Isabel Marant in Residenzstrasse).

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Art Design Restaurants Town Houses

Kaisergarten Bar + Restaurant Munich

Bavarian Nights

For 100 years an Art Nouveau house on the corner of Kaiserplatz and Kaiserstrasse opposite St Ursula’s Church has been an hospitable hotspot of Schwabing. Kaisergarten’s interior (think dried flowers and chopped logs) overlooks a chestnut tree filled beer garden. Cheers everyone to the Kaiser!

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Stapleford Park Hotel + St Mary Magdalene Church Melton Mowbray Leicestershire

Making a Splash

It was 35 years ago and there was no escaping Stapleford Park in the print media. American entrepreneur Bob Payton knew how to make a splash. Instead of hiring only interior designers to decorate the bedrooms of his newly converted country house hotel, he threw a shirtmaker, a porcelain company and a perfumier amongst many others into the mix. It caught the press and public’s attention. Eight years later, another media savvy entrepreneur, this time Englishman Peter de Savary, took over Stapleford Park and opened it as one of his Carnegie Club outpost adding not least the Knot Garden in front of the main entrance door. Cue double page spreads in the supplements once more. Skibo Castle in Dornoch, the home of the Victorian philanthropic industrialist Andrew Carnegie, continues to be a Carnegie Club. His portrait hangs in the gents’ bathroom at Stapleford Park. Just when we thought life couldn’t get any more glamorous, we find ourselves pottering about the Wedgwood Room of the hotel, weighing up a walk in the Capability Brown designed parkland of heaven verging fields versus tea on the terrace. Happy camping. We do both.

Bob Payton bought the house and its 200 hectare estate from Lord Gretton for £600,000 and spent a further £4 million rejuvenating and opening it as a hotel and leisure resort. We’re privileged to exclusively share his last recorded interview before he died in a car crash in 1994: “I first saw Stapleford Park from the back of a horse riding nearby in rolling countryside. Stapleford has been for many centuries a sporting lodge with riding, shooting and lavish entertainment all part of its heritage. It is our endeavour to keep that same style for many years to come. So interesting is the history of Stapleford Park and fascinating its architecture that the house was open to the public for several decades. Walking through the house and around the grounds is like going on a magical mystery tour. Through each and every doorway, there is another adventure. Set in 500 acres of woodland and parkland, the house provides breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside from every room.”

“Our approach to life in the country is that of a relaxed, comfortable, casual existence. We’ve replaced the servants and butlers if the old days with a team of people who are dedicated to making sure you enjoy our home and all it has to offer. We hope you like our approach to hospitality. To complement the eclectic architectural style of this most unusual house I invited several famous names to design bedrooms based on their own image of life at Stapleford Park. Signature bedrooms have been created by Tiffany, Wedgwood, Lindka Cierach, Lady Jane Churchill, Crabtree and Evelyn, Nina Campbell, Liberty, Max Pike and many others. We’re thrilled that these folks found Stapleford Park such an exciting challenge.”

“The dining room is decorated with ornate and intricate woodwork accredited to the most famous of all English carvers, Grinling Gibbons. In these luxurious surroundings, we serve traditional English cuisine with the occasional flair of old fashioned American cooking. You can enjoy the food that Stapleford’s guests have enjoyed over the centuries and much much more. As for sport, the surrounding Leicestershire countryside is most famous for its equestrian links. We offer most kinds of equestrian pursuits including carriage driving and riding instruction. There is clay shooting on the property and game shooting can be arranged. You can fish on the lake in front of the house or at nearby Rutland Water. If that’s not enough, there’s tennis, croquet and basketball, as well as walks through and around the property in this most lovely of settings.”

“Come and discover a truly great undiscovered part of England. Stapleford Park is in reality most people’s fantasy of the quintessential English countryside. Let me tell you about Edward Prince of Wales. His mother wouldn’t let him buy Stapleford Park because she felt that his morals might be corrupted by the Leicestershire hunting society. Well that was 100 years ago. Fortunately the Royal Family settled at Sandringham so that all of us may now enjoy the pleasures of this most idyllic estate.” The Royal Family are still happily ensconced at Sandringham and we are even more happily enjoying life at Stapleford Park.

The house glows a golden hue in afternoon sunshine and shimmers a mysterious grey in morning mist. Poet Mary Oliver writes in her essay Wordsworth’s Mountain (Upstream Collected Essays, 2016), “This is to say nothing against afternoons, evenings, or even midnight. Each has its portion of the spectacular. But dawn – dawn is a gift.” Every elevation and wing is a piece of architecture in itself and together they form a visual whole in material only. Crunchie the ginger cat (technically the neighbour’s but wise enough to hang out on the estate) matches the ashlar stone. One minute Stapleford Park is a Jacobean manor house; turn a corner, the next minute it’s a Queen Anne stately home; turn another corner, a Jacobethan hunting lodge; one more, a Loire château. As for the entrance front facing the quiet waters of the lake, the nine bay string coursed perfection is as symmetrical as a supermodel’s face. No big name architects are recorded (unlike the landscape and panelling!) but two owners have added their name for posterity in stone carvings on the exterior of a wing: “William Lord Sherard Baron of Letrym Repayred This Building Anno Domini 1633”. Underneath there’s a postscript: “And Bob Payton Esq. Did His Bit Anno Domini 1988”.

Indoors the eclecticism continues thanks partly to the layering of six or so centuries and partly to the aforementioned cohorts of dreamers and designers let loose on the fabric and fabrics. The main block is laid out around two vast double height top lit spaces: the Staircase Hall and adjacent Saloon. Public and private lounging and dining ebbs and flows throughout the ground floor. The Morning Room (with its mullioned bay window). The Harborough Room (crimson Gainsborough silk wallpaper). Billiard Room (converted games table). The Orangery (windows galore). The Grinling Gibbons Dining Room (festooned panelling by his namesake). The Old Kitchen (stone vaulted ceiling). Formal dinner is served in the Grinling Gibbons Dining Room: Baron De Beaupre Champagne; pea, goat’s curd, mint pistou tartlet and crispy onions; butter roasted cod, fennel and leak cream, new potatoes, sea herbs. Stapleford Park is a bread roll’s throw from Melton Mowbray and its Stilton Creamery so a generous cheese board offering is called for: Beacon Fell, Bingham Blue, Pitchfork Cheddar, Ribblesdale Goat’s, Tuxford and Tebbut Stilton. Five tall sash windows frame the descent of darkness. Mary Oliver again, “Poe claimed he could hear the night darkness as it poured, in the evening, into the world.”