There is something wonderfully contradictory about Vienna. It is a city of enormous imperial palaces, gilded ballrooms and extraordinary displays of wealth. Yet some of its most beautiful interiors are surprisingly restrained. A simple bentwood chair beside a marble café table. A polished walnut writing desk. A beautifully proportioned room with pale walls, parquet floors…
Budapest is a city that seems made for interiors. Behind the grand façades of Pest are apartments with soaring ceilings, worn parquet floors and double doors that have survived more than a century. Coffee houses hide behind heavy curtains and gilded entrances. Art Nouveau buildings are covered in ceramics, stained glass and strange botanical details….
Prague has a way of making almost everything feel slightly more atmospheric than it needs to be. A café is rarely just a café. It might have dark timber panelling, bentwood chairs, brass details and ceilings that seem far too elaborate for somewhere serving coffee. An apartment might pair parquet floors and ornate plasterwork with…
There are cities you recognise by a landmark, and then there are cities you recognise by a colour. Bath belongs firmly in the second group. Walk almost anywhere through the historic centre and the same soft, warm stone seems to follow you: creamy gold terraces, honey-coloured crescents, pale façades catching the afternoon light and entire…
Trieste does not look quite like the Italy most people imagine. There are no terracotta Tuscan farmhouses or sun-bleached Mediterranean villas here. Instead, Trieste feels slightly grander, darker and more mysterious — a city of marble cafés, old bookshops, polished timber, pale stone façades and rooms that seem designed for reading while rain hits the…
There is a version of Gothic interior design that seems to exist almost entirely on the internet. Everything is black. There are ravens. There are skulls. There is usually an alarming quantity of velvet. And somewhere, almost inevitably, there is a four-poster bed that looks as though Dracula has recently checked out. Gothic Romance is…
There is a version of Gothic interior design that involves velvet curtains, gargoyles, candelabras and enough black furniture to make a room feel permanently trapped in November. Modern Gothic is not that. At least, it doesn’t have to be. Modern Gothic takes some of the most compelling ideas from traditional Gothic architecture — pointed arches,…
For a style built around breaking rules, Postmodernism has somehow ended up with a surprisingly narrow reputation. Mention Postmodern interior design and most people picture the same things: bright primary colours, squiggly furniture, checkerboard floors, oversized geometric lamps and something vaguely Memphis Milano sitting in the corner. And yes, all of that happened. But Postmodernism…
There are some interior styles you recognise immediately, even if you have absolutely no idea what they are called. A curved wall of glass blocks. A sweeping built-in banquette wrapping around a corner. Chrome tubular furniture. Rounded cabinetry with no sharp edges. Long horizontal lines, polished surfaces and rooms that somehow look slightly like the…
Warm timber. Built-in furniture. Walls of glass. Open-plan living. Rooms designed around nature rather than decorated against it. It sounds remarkably contemporary. Except Frank Lloyd Wright was doing it nearly a century ago. Usonian design is one of those styles that feels strangely familiar even if you’ve never heard the word before. Its influence is…