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SABBATH PLUS ONE Louis Pasteur Street + The Jaffa Hotel Jaffa Tel Aviv

Love in a Hot Climate

“Now let my lord send his servants the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised, and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them as rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.” II Chronicles 2:15 to 16

The sun stands still. Gazing across the Mediterranean shoreline (273 kilometres stretching north to Lebanon and tipping Egypt to the southwest), astonished by our own brilliance, mingling with the coastal elite, we are delighted how well the afternoon has turned out. “You will die! The Jaffa is gorgeous,” coos Parisienne Maud Rabanne, une dame cultivée. “Coucou! Have coffee on the roof terrace. It’s got the best view! The Jaffa is one of my favourite places. It’s fabuloso! C’est la vie! That’s what we say in Paris. We always mean it in a positive way. Montagne de baisirs. Remplie de joie d’amour et de bonheur. Tchin-tchin!” Cinq à sept. Coûte que coûte. Le paradis, c’est les autres.

Moshe Sakal describes a similar view in his novel The Diamond Setter (2018), “Tel Aviv sprawls out on the right, the rocks of Jaffa on the left, and straight ahead lies Andromeda’s Rock, a plain looking rock that juts out of the water with an Israeli flag billowing on its peak.” International architect John O’Connell hints, “Should you arrive at the hotel, go further up and down the hill, as the Roman Catholic church will be on your left, and nearly opposite it is a very fine and abandoned Ottoman building. A robust ensemble. Try to see the internal court, where I have failed to do so! Such supreme life and joy!” Ah, that will be the Old Saraya House taken over by clubbers, bats and thespians. Abandonment begone!

We’re enjoying a Mitfordesque moment (Love in a Cold Climate heated up from 1949) on that terrace: “So here we all are, my darling, having our lovely cake and eating it too, one’s great aim in life.” We’re feeling “very grand as well as very rich”. The pleasures of passing hours. It helps that this heroic hotel is emphatically designed by everybody’s favourite minimalist maestro, master of the monastic John Pawson, along with Israeli architect and conservationist Ramy Gill. Oracle of our own orbit, balancing on a notional pedestal, we don’t need a doctorate in aesthetics to appreciate John Pawson’s masterwork. John O’Connell is on a roll: “Mr P’s oeuvre is so restrained. Everything’s resolved.” It’s a breath of fresh air, or at least an intake of the coolest sea breeze imaginable. Soon we will be expounding riddles with the grand piano and dwelling on Gertrude Stein (Tender Buttons, 1914), “Cold climate. A season in yellow sold extra strings makes lying places.”

The 1870s Saint Louis V Hospital, built by French businessman François Guinet to the design of architectural practice Grebez and Ribellet and managed by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition, has been sharply reimagined under John Pawson’s crisply contained direction. Delamination of extant solid form – from the remnants of a 13th century Crusaders’ bastion in the lobby to the peeling paint of the dusky pink loggias – leads to a richly layered intertextual discursively informative spirited patina of the raw and the worked throughout the revelatory restoration and clever conversion and audacious augmentation and sensual solution. Faded lettering over the arched doorways lining the loggias reads: ‘Communaute’, ‘Tribune’, ‘Salle Ste Elizabeth 2me Don Blesses, ‘Salle Ste Clotilde 2me Don Fievreux’, ‘Salle Ste Marie Pensionnaires’, ‘Orphelinat’. As Hans Ulrich Obrist (Ways of Curating, 2014) would interject, “… conversations … are happening between various narratives”.

Beyond the lobby with its Ligne Roset corduroy sofas and Damien Hirst spin paintings and lacquered backgammon tables lies a courtyard garden of sacred and human geometry (an unflowered greenscape) linking the ancient with the old with the new with the futuristic. John Pawson venerates yet challenges the original architecture, creating an unfolding sequence of voids and vistas and virtuosic visions. There’s an endless tightly choreographed play between past and present, architecture and art: a nuanced paradox of togetherness and oneness. As Elizabeth Bowen contends in The Heat of the Day (1948), “To turn from everything to one face is to find oneself face to face with everything.” There lies the definite ascetism – to be freed from oneself. Not even an Israeli Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden, 1911) could summon up such discreet walled splendour. Corrugations of percolated sunshine ripple across the stone floor, climbing over chairs, falling over tables. Beyond the courtyard lies the Chapel Bar. The beyondness of many things. This world is our oyster and ours alone. It’s all it’s cracked up to be. Postcard home material. We’re checked in; we’ve checked out. Being here; doing it.

A private paradise. A secret world. A hidden kingdom. Cloistered espaliered sequestered formal glory. The very essence of unexampled exclusivity. If luxury could be bottled … heaven’s scent. A multiple epiphanic realisation of complete beauty. It was as if Elizabeth Bowen was in The Jaffa and not The House in Paris (1935), “Heaven – call it heaven; on the plane of potential not merely likely behaviour. Or call it art, with truth and imagination informing every word.” Marilynne Robinson (When I Was a Child I Read Books, 2012) insists, “Call it history, call it culture. We came from somewhere and we are tending somewhere, and the spectacle is glorious and portentous.”

Ah – the Chapel Bar – from litany and liturgy to luxury and libation, à la carte over elegy, mixology supplanting doxology, heterodoxy replacing orthodoxy, every hour is happy in this soaring sanctuary for sybarites. The only blues are the saturated cerulean hues of the ribbed vaulted ceiling. Beautiful in its loftiness, this bar is an explosion of sizzling rarity, of dazzlingly dilettantish individuality. There are no equals. There were no prequels. There’ll be no sequels. The perfect pitstop to slake your thirst, it’s like being at a house party if all your friends are knowingly sophisticated distractingly gorgeous models or similar ilk rocking new threads inspired by Inès de la Fressange’s (Parisian Chic Encore: A Style Guide, 2019) “haute couture and street style” – Doron Ashkenaz shirts and skin fade haircuts – dancing in eternal graceful circles. In Tel Aviv, kitchen and club are often confused so dancing on tables is de rigueur. A real era catcher: the New Roaring Twenties. Here they come The Beautiful Ones, The Fabulists, The Found Generation, Our Milieu. As befits our subject matter, we’re looking just a little bit sparkly ourselves: all dressed up in Elie Saab attire with somewhere to go; we shall go to the ball. What Roland Barthes (The Fashion System, 1963) calls “the euphoria of Fashion”. All of life has been a dress rehearsal for tonight. For a hot minute we’re running with the fastest set in town. To reference Nancy Mitford’s Don’t Tell Alfred (1963), it’s “high-falutin’, midnight stuff”.

The hotel is all “courtesy clouds” and “honeyed luxury” in a “rococo harmony” straight from The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (Frances Scott Fitzgerald, 1922). Average doesn’t exist in The Jaffa: it’s Lake Wobegon for real and we’ve got a majestic waterside view. Such is the alchemic segue! And who should know better than us? We’re qualified connoisseurs of fabulousness with diplomas in decadence, bachelors in brio and masters in magnificence. Very Bright Young Things. We’re taking the advice of Frédéric Dassas, Senior Curator of the Musée du Louvre Paris. During the Remembering Napoléon III Dinner at Camden Place in Kent he guided us: “Be part of the room; don’t just go through it.” The Chapel Bar is full of “people one should know” to channel Dorinda, Lady Dunleath. She would say, “It’s wild!” The glitter of this mirage. “Every generation has to keep the party going,” Her Ladyship always remarked in her Belgravia meets Ballywalter accent.

Morning figs and evening chocolates bookend a day’s room service. “Upstairs is crazy with dreams or love,” purrs Elizabeth Bowen (The House in Paris again). Guest suites breathe and stretch and sprawl across six uncrowded unhurried unparalleled bedroom floors, arabesque honeycomb filigreed screens flung open to the birds tweeting roosters crowing leaves rustling church bells peeling Saint Michael’s Greek Orthodox School pupils singing car horns honking cacophony. Deliciously diffused light seeps through the open window conjuring up a crimson carpet of crushed rubies. Devoid of demanding garniture or frivolous flotsam and jetsam, passing on the passementerie, the sole artwork in our bedroom is an orange tree captured by Israeli photographer Tal Shochat. Scholar Rebecca Walker educated us at the Remembering Napoléon III Dinner: “Eugénie, Empress of the French, had a fondness for knickknacks.” The unfussy décor of our bedroom would raise her imperial chagrin. A slanted mirror doubles as a reflection of perfection and a television. The perfumed aroma of jasmine and honeysuckle intensifies in the dying heat of a balmy summer day. And so to bed. Looking back, much later, like Frances Scott Fitzgerald’s character John we “remembered that first night as a daze of many colours, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows, and motions and faces”. Elizabeth Bowen’s line in To The North (1932) haunts us still: “this evening had an airy superurbanity”.

“… and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts.” Exodus 35:31 to 33

(Extract with alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).

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Coal Drops Yard + Coal Office Restaurant King’s Cross London

Beyond the Espérance Bridge

At the close of last century, the land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras Railway Stations was promoted as the biggest development site in Europe. Over the post millennium decades new places and spaces have taken shape between and inside retained and restored structures. The cast iron frames of gasholders continue to provide a robust architectural presence. An ankle height plaque on one of their columns reads: “Erected 1864. Telescoped 1880.”

Next to the gasholders is Coal Drops Yard, a collection of former industrial buildings transformed by designer Thomas Heatherwick into luxury shops (such as Le Chocolat by Alain Ducasse, Astrid and Miyu jewellers and Tom Dixon’s flagship store), galleries and restaurants. Overlooking Coal Drops Yard and backing onto the canal is a row of gorgeous converted commercial buildings. On the ground floor is designer Tom Dixon’s studio and – whoop whoop! – an Israeli restaurant. Further to the north are some of the most exciting new schemes in London. Not least Allison Brooks Architects’ Cadence tower of apartments over offices. The historic arches of the area are reinterpreted in bézier arched window openings on various levels of the 15 storey tower and adjoining lower blocks to striking effect.

Coal Drops Yard was built in the 1850s close to the canal and railway tracks to receive, sort and store the coal that powered Victorian London. Two decades later the coal trade shifted south of the canal and the buildings found alternative industrial uses. Glass bottle manufacturer Bagley, Wild and Company took over one of the buildings. Little did cousins William and John William Bagley know that a film studio in what was once their warehouse would retain their surname. Better still, the next use, a nightclub, would as well. Bagley’s occupied the three storey eastern block of Coal Drops Yard. It held the biggest and best raves in Nineties London with capacity (often exceeded) of 2,500 partygoers. Each floor would have a different music genre blasting to the beams. Pure ecstasy!

Next door to Tom Dixon’s studio, Coal Office is a collaboration between him and businessman Chef Assaf Granit (who owns the Michelin starred Machneyuda in Jerusalem). Over Saturday brunch at the restaurant bar overlooking the open plan kitchen we chat to Head Chef Dan Pelles. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York before working for five years at the nearby triple Michelin starred restaurant Jean Georges. His cooking is rooted in Israel and across the Levant: Dan is from Tel Aviv.

We name drop Shila (pronounced like the female name “Sheila”), our favourite Tel Avivian spot for lunch, especially on the Ben Yehuda Street terrace. “Shila is a great seafood restaurant,” Dan agrees, and referring to the owner Chef, “Sharon Cohen is a good friend. Israel is so so tiny – everyone knows everyone! Have some chilli olives.” We’re keen to understand what Israeli cuisine is all about.

“In New York there’s Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy,” he relates. “So many cuisines are separately defined. Not so much in Israel. In the Forties and and early Fifties Israel was filled with immigrants from Yemini to European. I have a Scottish grandmother and a Moroccan grandmother. It became a melting pot – the common language is food. There’s no other place like it in the world. Israeli cuisine is a blend of international traditions with healthy and fresh local ingredients. My Scottish grandmother made black pudding; my Moriccan grandmother cooked octopus. I eat both!”

“This dish has three types of aubergine.” Tarterie Oto (aubergine tartare, white and black aubergine cream, parsley and chilli aubergine) is served. The weekend brunch menu is divided into Small Plates, In Between Plates and Big Plates. We opt for ample sized Small Plates. Tapogan (salmon sashimi, potato crisp, horseradish crème fraîche, chilli oil, dill) is followed by Salat Dla’at (Delicat pumpkin, dandelion, Galotyri cheese, apple balsamic vinaigrette). Dan’s prestigious training and experience shines through in every dish. Alma White 2021 from Dalton Winery, Galilee, is the perfect accompaniment to the savouries. “Do you want an Israeli passion fruit dessert wine?” tempts Dan when sea salt caramel ice cream on carmelised pretzel arrives.

The sharply defined interior right down to the wine glasses and cutlery is designed by Tom Dixon. We interviewed the designer for Select Interiors Winter 2008. This glossy Irish magazine was published by Brigid Whitehead. Here’s the copy: We keep hearing the word ‘maverick’ bandied about in the media, especially on American television channels. Vice President hopeful Sarah Palin can barely make a speech without referring to her running mate John McCain as a maverick. Whether or not he fits the standard definition (“A lone dissenter: an intellectual, artist or a politician who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates”) is a moot point. A quick online search of the contemporary designer Tom Dixon’s recent career highlights – of which there are many – wouldn’t immediately suggest he is a maverick either. He’s been awarded no fewer than two doctorates and the highly successful design brand Tom Dixon has now expanded into the US. That’s just the tip of his iceberg sized CV.

His iconic status is there for all to see. Surprisingly, he’s self taught. His maverick status starts to emerge. “He is a self educated maverick whose only qualification is a one day course in plastic bumper repair,” is a quote once used to describe Tom’s background. In place of formal training, his interest in welding led him to experiment with furniture using found objects from a steelyard at Chelsea Harbour including iron tread plate, gas fittings and industrial nuts and bolts. Tom explains, “I was immediately hooked on welding … mesmerised by the tiny pool of molten metal viewed from the safety of darkened goggles. Allowing an instant fusion of one piece of steel to another, it had none of the seriousness of craft, none of the pomposity of design. It was industry.”

Recycling might be all the rage now, but back in the Eighties, Tom chartered new waters with his breakthrough designs. Others were left to play catch up. They still are. He continues, “London at the time was full of scrap metal yards and the skips were piled full of promising bits and pieces due to the Eighties boom … all of which presented themselves to me as potential chair backs or table legs. Unhindered by commercial concerns – I had my night job – or formal training, I made things just for the pleasure of making them. It was only when people started to buy that I realised I had hit on a form of alchemy. I could turn a pile of scrap metal into gold!”

At the end of the following decade, pundits were surprised when he accepted the post as Head of the UK Design Studio at Habitat. In the intervening years, he had been self employed and he was never considered ‘establishment’. Tom confesses his friends were horrified. Perhaps they thought he was losing his hard earned maverick status? According to him, “They said I would have my creativity compromised. I would be entering a stifling world of corporate politics.” But in reality, “It was as though I had a giant toy box … all the manufacturing techniques in the world from basket work to injection moulding. Everything for the home to design … everything at normal everyday prices!”

Six years ago, the company called Tom Dixon was set up by Tom and his business partner David Begg. In 2004 a partnership was established between the Tom Dixon founders and venture capitalists Proventus to form Design Research Studio. Today, the Studio owns and manages the brand Tom Dixon as well as Artek, the Finnish modernist furniture manufacturer established by Alvar Aalto in 1935. But Tom has ensured that he hasn’t sold out, joined the establishment. Instead he is fulfilling his lifetime ambition to make good design available to everyone.

Every icon must have his or her iconic work and Tom’s has grown from single pieces of furniture such as the S Chair and Blow Pendant Light to full blown interiors. Shoreditch House is Design Research Studio’s latest project, led by Tom. As usual, an innovative approach was taken to this private members’ club in a converted biscuit factory. The industrial character was played up by introducing even more raw materials while dedication to comfort with deep-pile rugs creates an enjoyable tension. In Tom’s words, the concept was to, “Celebrate honest materials with all their functional and decorative qualities. Their imperfections too.” We’ve heard that Damien Hirst, Jamie Dornan and Sophie Ellis Bextor all like to hang out there.

Tom has turned full circle. He recently joined a band called Rough; he plays with them when working for Artek in Helsinki. Last time he was in a band was in the Eighties. “We play bad Kylie Minogue covers,” he says, laughing. And in the last six months, Tom has started buying back original Artek pieces from schools and hospitals and replacing them with new versions. The institutions are glad of the update and collectors like to buy the originals. “The big idea underpinning the whole project is this discussion about sustainability,” he relates. It’s a new take on recycling. No matter what career posts he takes on, he’s always able to take an independent stand apart. Tom Dixon, ever the maverick.

Returning to 2023, whole Coal Office is Tom Dixon’s next door neighbour, his upstairs neighbour is the celebrated architectural practice Herzog and Meuron. What’s new in his store below in Coal Drops Yard? He advises, “Elements: a series of fragrances inspired by the medieval alchemist and eastern philosopher’s quest to reduce all matter to four simple elements, four scents of extreme simplicity and individual character that reflect their elemental names of Fire, Air, Earth and Water.” A medium size candle is £125; large, £220. As we edge towards the middle of the third post millennium decade, the land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras Railway Stations has become one of the best developed sites in Europe.

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Chichester West Sussex +

Signs of the Times

On the eve of the 17th Sunday after Trinity, or as one entrant in the Visitors’ Book of the Pallant House Art Gallery put it, “37 days till Halloween”, we spend the day in Chichester. Pronounced “Chai-chester” if you are from Belfast (Chichester Street is one of the city’s main thoroughfares). Londoners put the hitch into “Chitch-ester”. The city is logically and legibly laid out: North, South, East and West Streets crisscross at Chichester Cross.

The laneways snaking round the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity are pure Miss Marple territory. The red brick Deanery with its façade spanning pediment gable is one of many historic residences under the shadow of the spire. The cathedral itself is an absolute medley of periods and styles with a very deliberate Romanesque vault system and simply divine medieval tracery. Recent additions include a portly stone head of The Queen, part cherub part gargoyle, looking down on commoners traipsing through the main entrance.

Every street is a revelation. There’s Chichester’s narrowest house at 6a North Pallant with its skinny one bay façade and entrance door squeezed to the left of the bay. Then there’s the Queen Anne townhouse reborn as the Pallant House Art Gallery. It has a smart restaurant in the 2006 wing designed by Sir Colin Wilson and Long + Kentish. A current exhibition of 80 miniature works of art by the likes of Damien Hirst, Augustus John, Paul Nash and Rachel Whiteread fills a model art gallery, an architectural maquette, with transparent gable end elevations designed by Wright + Wright architects.

There are wide townhouses of Henrietta Street Dublin proportions with double pile roofs and deep returns. There are white brick terraces with paired entrance doors. It rains, it shines, we come close to missing our train (The Foundry pub is temptingly close yet mercifully next to the railway station) all full of the joys of a day well spent. And everywhere in this most civilised of cities are enough signs of the historic times to compete with a Harry Styles song.

The plinth of the statue of St Richard Bishop of Chichester,1245 to 1253, near the entrance to the cathedral: “Thanks be to Thee my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which Thou has given me, for all the pains and insults which Thou hast borne for me. O Most Merciful Redeemer, friend and brother, may I know Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly and follow Thee more nearly.”

A plaque in the cathedral: “Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester 1955 to 1977, was in the forefront of the 20th century renaissance of church patronage of contemporary artists. As Vicar of St Matthew’s, Northampton, he had commissioned a ‘Mother and Child’ by Henry Moore and a ‘Crucifixion’ by Graham Sutherland. For Chichester he commissioned the Sutherland painting, the John Piper tapestry, the Marc Chagall window and copes by Ceri Richards. Hussey was responsible for introducing Geoffrey Clarke’s cast aluminium works such as the furniture in this chapel, the lectern at the shrine and the pulpit. He also commissioned major works of choral music including Berstein’s Chichester Psalms and Albright’s Chichester Mass. Hussey himself amassed an important collection of modern art which he left to the Pallant House Gallery. There may be seen sketches for the Piper tapestry and Feibusch’s Baptism of Christ, as well as another version of the Sutherland painting and works by others including Ivon Hitchens.”

The painting Noli me Tangere by Graham Sutherland, 1960, inside the cathedral: “This painting depicts the moment when Mary Magdalene finds the tomb of Christ empty, but encounters the resurrected Christ and mistakes Him for a gardener. Sutherland presented Dean Hussey with two paintings; Hussey selected the one he felt most appropriate for the cathedral setting, which features Christ in a gardener’s straw hat. The second painting remained in Hussey’s private collection, now at the Pallant House Gallery.”

The Chagall Window in the cathedral: “This window designed by Marc Chagall and made by Charles Marq was unveiled by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent and dedicated to the Bishop of Chichester at 12 noon on Friday, 6 October, 1978. It was commissioned by Dr Walter Hussey shortly before he retired as Dean. The theme of the window is Psalm 150: ‘O praise God in His holiness – Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.’ The triumphal quality of this chant is expressed by the dominance in the composition of the colour red (red on white, on green, on yellow) broken up by a certain number of green, blue and yellow blobs. This is the first time that Marc Chagall has conceived a subject composed entirely of small figures: it is the people in festive mood glorifying the Lord, exalting His greatness and His creation. The musicians are playing the instruments referred to in the Psalm: horn, drum, flutes, strings and cymbals. A man juxtaposed with an animal at the right hand edge of the composition holds open a little book, indicating that the word too participates in this hymn of praise. In the centre two figures hold up the seven branched candlestick, while David, author of the Psalm, crowns the whole composition playing upon his harp.”

Another 20th century insertion into the cathedral: “The High Altar and Piper Tapestry 1966. Considered the spiritual heart of a church, the High Altar represents the ‘holy table’, a sacred place for gifts and prayers to be offered to God. The tapestry, set behind the High Altar, was commissioned by Dean Hussey from the British artist John Piper and was installed in 1966. It consists of seven panels, each one metre wide and five metres high. Using bold colours and striking imagery the central subject is the Holy Trinity, to which the cathedral is dedicated.”

The most famous memorial in the cathedral: “The Arundel Tomb circa 1375. This tomb monument is widely identified as being that of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (died 1376) and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster (circa 1372). It was first erected at Lewes Priory and was moved to Chichester following the priory’s dissolution in 1537. The hand joining pose of the figures is rare and was restored in 1843 after much research. The tomb is best known today through Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ (1955).

One of our best architectural finds in Chichester: “Welcome to St John’s Chapel. This Grade I Listed Building is no longer used for regular worship but is one of over 330 churches in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust. Despite its nonconformist appearance St John’s Chapel is in fact Anglican. It was opened in 1813 to overcome the shortage of accommodation provided by the city’s seven tiny parish churches. It was not a parish church but a proprietary chapel which, although firmly part of the Church of England, was built and run as a commercial venture. Its Trustees, in addition to paying the Minister’s and organist’s salaries and keeping the building in repair, had to pay dividends to the shareholders and keeping the ‘business’ afloat was a constant struggle.”

“With no income from a parish or financial support from the Diocese the Trustees’ income had to come from sale and rent of pews and the generosity of the congregation. Worshipping at a proprietary chapel was an expensive alternative to a parish church! St John’s was designed by the London architect James Elmes (1782 to 1862) who carried out a body of work in and around Chichester between 1811 and 1814 when he was also surveyor to Chichester Cathedral. The wealthy bought or rented spacious box pews situated in and beneath the gallery. These pews were only accessible from the side porches. However the 1812 Act of Parliament authorising the chapel required at least 250 free seats to be provided for the use of the poor. These were open backed benches in the centre of the chapel and as they could only be reached from the front door the classes were kept strictly separated.”

“A three decker pulpit was a most essential attribute of a Georgian church or chapel and was used for the services of Morning and Evening Prayer. The lower desk was occupied by the Parish Clerk who had the job of leading the congregation in the responses and Psalms. The Minister would occupy the middle desk from which he would read the service but after the third collection and the prayers he would ascend the stairs to the pulpit to preach his sermon. From this vantage point he would have a good view of those in the gallery as well as those sitting below and could also watch the clock set in the west end gallery in order to time his sermon. The pulpit of St John’s is made of American black birch and was originally laid out on the more usual east west axis. At some time it was realigned north south and examination of the lower desk reveals the fact that there was originally a door on the north side.”

A jolly plaque over the front door of the Council House and Assembly Room, “Licensed in pursuance of Act of Parliament for music and dancing.” This building is one of the most architecturally important in Chichester: “The Council House was erected in 1731 by public subscription at a cost of £1,189. It was designed by Roger Morris (1695 to 1749), the architectural associate of the Earl of Pembroke, who, with the 3rd Earl of Burlington, was the leader of the Palladian movement which set the standards for nearly all English architecture in the second half of the 18th century. The Assembly Room was added to the east of the Council House from the designs of James Wyatt (1746 to 1813). It is approached from the landing of the Council House, through an anteroom, formerly a civic apartment. It is a spacious room of three bays lit by three windows. There are niches over the original fireplace.” And finally, a race down the ages of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity.

  • 2025: To mark the 950th anniversary of the cathedral’s move from Selsey to its forever home, there will be a festival of music and art.
  • 2021: Lavender’s Blue make a pilgrimage to the oldest city in Sussex.
  • 1960s: Modern artworks by among others Ursula Benker-Schermer, Hans Feibusch and John Piper are commissioned.
  • 1930: St Richard’s shrine is restored.
  • 1866: The cathedral reopens after repair.
  • 1861: The tower and spire collapse.
  • 1660: Restoration begins on the cathedral.
  • 1642: Parliamentaries ransack the building during the English Civil War.
  • 1538: St Richard’s shrine is wrecked during the Reformation.
  • 1530: The large scale paintings by Lambert Barnard are completed.
  • 1400: The spire, cloisters and bell tower are constructed.
  • 1276: The body of St Richard is moved to the retroquire after being canonised by Pope Urban IV 14 years earlier.
  • 1100s: Much of the eastern end of the cathedral is destroyed by a series of fires.
  • 1108: The cathedral is consecrated.
  • 1075: The bishopric and cathedral are moved to Chichester and building work commences.
  • 681: The monastery founded by St Wilfried in Selsey becomes the first cathedral in Sussex.

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The Berkeley Hotel Knightsbridge London + Breakfast

Apsley Fabulous

Lavender’s Blue. Some colours are legendary. And others become synonymous with places. The Blue Bar is always The Berkeley Hotel. The hangout of the bold and brilliant and beautiful down from Apsley House. Every era has one. A London fine dining defining interior designer. Currently, it’s Martin Brudnizki. At the end of last century, no restaurant or wine bar was complete unless David Collins had transformed it. The late Dublin born artist used a striking Lutyens Blue hue, a dusky cornflower, to create the most memorable interior in Knightsbridge just as the new millennium dawned. In a touching posthumous tribute, The Berkeley called up David Collins’ protégé to dream up a dining room named after his master. Robert Angell employed some of David Collins’ favourite motifs, from a white onyx bar to a Soaneian use of mirrors. Some designers are legendary. And others become synonymous with places. Lavender’s Blue. Breakfast in bed, even The Berkeley variety, means casually leafing through magazines, preferable the vintage variety. Although inclusion of today’s Times is a nice touch. Here’s the September 1999 edition of Wallpaper* magazine:

“There’s no denying that the acrimonious and much publicised art appreciation tiff between Damien Hirst and new Quo Vadis owner, Marco Pierre White, was bound to draw in curious diners and art lovers alike. But David Collins’ pleasing refit and the culinary skills of ex Ivy maître d’ Fernando Peire are two good reasons to return.  Leather banquettes break up the room, a marked improvement on its previous cold refectory incarnation. Though not hugely original, the food is exquisite, just as we have come to expect from a MPW establishment; lobster, poulet noir and a variety of risottos are all on offer to a discerning clientele. The controversial conceptual art by Marco Pierre White is more than a little reminiscent of that of Damien Hirst, though much cheekier, especially our favourite, the aptly named ‘Divorce’ – a copy of Hirst’s dot painting, but with four perpendicular slashes – ouch. The Private room at the back boasts Thirties New York green leather walls created by the ubiquitous Bill Amberg. The skeletons have been ripped out of the upstairs bar, and the refit’s final stage will include  a bar for the restaurant as well as a members’ bar called ‘Marx’ in homage to the great Karl who lived on this site. Admittance will depend on whether or not Fernando likes you – so start sending flowers and chocolates now.”

As always, what does Gertrude Stein have to say about breakfast in her 1914 Tender Buttons? Rather a lot as it turns out. Here are a few of her rich pickings, “A sudden slice changes the whole plate, it does so suddenly.” And, “An imitation, more imitation, imitation succeed imitations.” And, and, and, “Anything that is decent, anything that is present, a calm and a cook and more singularly a shelter, all these show the need of clamour. What is the custom, the custom is in the centre.” A candy striped strawed bottle of ‘Berkeley Boost’ – freshly squeezed carrot, orange, turmeric, apple and ginger – followed by a homemade croissant and almond pastry; fruit salad; Scottish smoked salmon, cream cheese, rocket with Annabel’s style linen tied lemon bagel; Greek yoghurt, granola, Acacia honey and strawberries; and a celebratory chocolate cake topped with raspberries. The portions are so indulgent this ain’t breakfast in bed – this is breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea and supper between the duvets. All to be taken laying down. All on Aunt Margery’s best linen and tea set. Some breakfasts are legendary. Lavender’s Blue.

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Architects Art Design Fashion Luxury People Restaurants

Sexy Fish Mayfair London + Annabel P + Mary Martin London + Peggy Gou + K Style + Maya Jama + Teddy Music + Gertrude Stein + Frank Gehry + Damien Hirst + Lavender’s Blue + Love + War + Peace

Annabel’s Party

Finally the limo pulls up on Berkeley Square and Annabel P dramatically disembarks dripping in diamonds. Cathedral school followed by the finishing variety has clearly paid off. It’s her role. Lavender’s Blue Directrice turned Diamonds Ambassadress turned Frontline Heroine has arrived. “Dahlings! One can never have enough class – or diamonds.” Clearly not. The doormen make way, the waitress beckoning to the best table in the house. Siberia where art thou now? “This is War and Peace!” Annabel declares scouring the wine list. “Champagne, dear Giuliano!” Meanwhile DJ Sophie ups the tempo downs the base. It’s a night off for Korean DJ Peggy Gou – K Style is so where it’s at right now – but Sophie is determined to bring the house down. This is going to be more disco than dinner.

Sometimes you really gotta go with it and order a pre dinner alfresco cocktail that matches the cushioned upholstery. Sea Breeze please or at least something ephemerally turquoise. Beetroot, carrot, ginger and orange detox elixirs soon cancel the boldness. For a hot minute. Annabel’s wearing Biba vintage, working it babes. Her fellow guest is as always rocking Mary Martin London head to toe. Annabel gets busy stirring up Insta Stories in between yellowtail tartar, smoked tofu and caviar followed by pink shrimp tempura. Maya Jama sends her love. Sexy Fish is after all the television presenter’s fav restaurant. Good friend Grime DJ Teddy Music of Silencer fame chimes in next. Everyone’s soon discussing menu tips. Mango and passionfruit, coconut and lemongrass or pineapple and mandarin sorbet? Decisions, decisions. “All three. Or is that six?” How does Gertrude Stein view dinner in her 1914 classic Tender Buttons? “Not a little fit, not a less fit sun sat in shed more mentally.”

Basement bound, a downward descent reverberating under a Frank Gehry crocodile past Damien Hirst mermaids before walking by those marbled bathrooms – salut Versailles – till the night relaxes into an embrace of unbelievably attractive seafood. Late call but Mary Martin London’s on the blower. “Fantastic! I cannot wait for our next interview. Let’s talk. I’m here and ready and want to talk about my amazing new dresses and fashion.” The limo pulls up on Berkeley Square and Annabel P dramatically departs dripping in diamonds and fantasy.

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Architecture Art Luxury Restaurants

Belvedere Restaurant Holland Park + Holland House London

Sequentia

The told untold. Belvedere was once the Summer Ballroom of Holland House. Jacobethan and all that. Yeah yeah all very interesting but where’s the St Véran (O+C Club favourite)? Sorted. This restaurant is housed in a gorgeous fragment of a great house, a remnant of glory rebuilt, a figment of imagination realised. Halcyon days | salad days | Holland days. Saucy. And that’s before the Marie Rose with prawn cocktail and caviar arrives. Lavender’s Blue intern Annabel P is here and on form. And she’s got form.

Main course is fillet of sea bass, Jerusalem artichokes and mushroom dipped in balsamic jus. A winning formula. But hey we’re distracted by the fenestration. It’s a very glassy affair. Jigsaw panes of intersecting hexagons and rectangles reflect the timber herringbone floor. We’re transfixed. And that’s before we realise this place is really an art gallery masquerading as a restaurant. Mulled wine jelly with vanilla crème fraîche distracts our minds for a cold minute. Wait! What do Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol have in common? You guessed it! Belvedere.

The formidable Karla W rocks up working it and then some: black trilby, black jacket, black polo, black shades, black stilettos. Black is the new black. Some days, formal lunch blurs into informal dinner into the velvety night into the evanescent. Days like this. The Summer Ballroom has renewed midwinter purpose. It’s got form. The untold unfolded.

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Art Design Luxury

Masterpiece London Preview 2013 + Royal Hospital Chelsea London

Art Attack

Donald Judd. Art for architecture’s sake. A private view at the chic David Zwirner Gallery in Mayfair. Three floors of white galleries behind a cream façade. Cool as. Next the RCA end of year show at the Dyson Building in Battersea. The gallery with a shop in residence. Unresolved duality. Is it just us or does art exist in a vacuum these days? Charles Saatchi put in an appearance, no doubt hunting for the next Damien or Tracey. Back over Battersea Bridge, a wedding cake cast in iron, walk down Cheyne and check into hospital. Royal Hospital Chelsea. We’ve saved the best till last. It’s Masterpiece, the highest end arts and antiques fair in London reserved for the nought-point-one-per-centers. Boutique Maastricht.

A red carpet over green grass leads to a white pop up portico framing the entrance to a vast marquee, a primitive structure lifted to the sublime by a printed cloak resembling the hospital building: Henry James’ “principle of indefinite horizontal extensions” in canvas. Masterpiece attracts the famous and infamous. Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice walk on by. Anna Wintour’s sharp bob and Zandra Rhodes’ fuschia bob make them both recognisable from behind, surely the key definition of fame. We are joined by leading architect and avatar of heritage today John O’Connell, first director of the Irish Architectural Archive Nick Sheaff, and reductivist artist Suresh Dutt. What’s the collective noun for design luminaries? Coterie?

Now in its fourth year, Masterpiece is a variegated container of uses, architecture, history and technologies, challenging our thinking on design, strategies and the relevance of art – and on the urban importance of aesthetics. It questions artistic predilections and speculates on ideas of time and context. A temporary setting for the permanently magical. First pitstop the Ruinart stand, the oldest Champagne house, purveyor to the likes of Browns Hotel. Next stop, The Mount Street Deli for beetroot and avocado salad.

The new Maserati Quattroporte on display provides a beautiful distraction. “The design of the Quattroporte is inspired by Maserati’s core stylistic principles: harmony of proportions, dynamic lines and Italian elegance,” explains Marco Tencone, head of the Maserati Design Centre. “It’s been kept simple and clear with a character line flowing alongthe side to define the strong volume of the rear wing, creating a very muscular look. The cabin is sleek with a three window treatment and frameless doors.” Even the engine is a work of art. Next, we call in on Philip Mould who has just sold The Cholmendeley Hilliard miniature, a rare portrait of an unknown lady of the Tudor court, for a not-so-miniature £200,000.

A pair of George III marquetry semi elliptical commodes with Irish provenance is the star attraction at Mallett, that stalwart of Dover Street antiques hub. “All this is very emphatic,” notes John, pointing to the lashings of evidently bespoke detail. Mallett attributes the commodes to the London cabinetmakers Ince & Mayhew. They were supplied to Robert and Catherine Birch in the 1770s for their home near Dublin, Turvey House. Duality resolved. John reminisces, “I picked up fragments of historic wallpaper from the derelict Turvey House, just before it was demolished in 1987.”

Onwards to the Milanese gallery Carlo Orsi which is celebrating winning object of the year, a 1920s bronze cast by Adolfus Wildt. But we are there to see Interior of Palazzo Lucchesi Palli di Campofranco in Palermo, an exquisite oil on canvas. Elegant Roman gallerist Alessandra di Castro remarks, “Oil is much more sought after than watercolour. This important aristocratic residence was the townhouse of the Duchess of Berry.” She understands the painting to be by the early 19th century Neapolitan artist Vincenzo Abbati. “It’s a wow picture!”

“The layered curtains filter the light through the open windows, imparting a soft indirect radiance to the room,” observes John. “The red banquette type seating, white chimney board and green painted frieze combine to form a most stylish Sicilian neoclassical interior. It forms the setting for a beautifully hung significant collection of paintings.” Guercino, Stomer, Titan: all the greats are represented. “My life is crowded with incident. I’m off to a bidet party in Dresden.” In between, he’s restoring Marino Casino, Ireland’s finest neoclassical building.