GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC
AN ADVENTURE IN SHAPE AND DECOR
MASH-UP DESIGN
Mixing dissimilar elements from different sources works for music and can cross into kitchen design.
Johnny was seeking here a sense of richness and variety. Andrew, the client, had been a witness in Moscow to a dramatic moment in modern history, the Yeltsin coup. This started a conversation on aesthetics. Constructivism, the Russian art movement, inspired the angular patterns and radical slogans on the walls. We combined gentle Arts and Crafts designs for the main cabinetry with exuberant Chippendale-type cabriole legs for the island. The dresser has been made with a fine roofboard supported by delicate turned spindles in the Shaker style, like candle sticks. Woodworking elegance of the eighteenth century has a presence.
Rich red, yellow and orange facades on the sink cabinet and fridge front hint at the sun’s warmth and contrast with darker hues of blue, green and purple, alluding to historic memories of royalty and nature.
The diversity of elements creates a very individual aesthetic for the room, a rich mash-up, celebration of the imagination and avoidance of clichés that arise out of following one particular style.
There is no overt copying, just subtle influences coming from multiple sources. Not mix or match but play and complementary companionship of furniture, objects and carpets patterns to build up an unexpected and fresh design vocabulary or décor for each client, reflecting their personal taste.
A tinge of foreignness with echoes of other times and place brings its own magic, embedded into wood through the craftsmanship of Jonathan Morris.
Finally, the artist Lucy Turner researched and painted the patterns, adding her own interpretation. It has a sense of royalty rather than peasant culture with the wall also connected to Coptic art. It was a gift to the client, an imaginary history that belongs to this Brownstone – that is how Johnny refers to it in his book Kitchen Culture.
