Previous pages: bought from a Belgian dealer, the drinks trolley is secured to the wall with an elephant hook from Pinxton & Co. Opposite: in the main bedroom, the throw has a border that resembles locomotive wheels – a serendipitous find from Rebecca Cole. Robert Kime supplied the striped valance. Sittings editor: Amy Sherlock A busy rail hub in northwest England feels like an unlikely portal to the golden age of train travel. Pendolinos, when not grounded by rail strikes, lurch and sway at nauseating speed, the countryside passing in a blur. Heady with the fragrance of blocked toilets, they offerweary travellersthe meagre comforts of palate-scalding tea and sad, overpriced sandwiches. Yet, just acrossthe tracksfrom where these crowded conduits spill out hoi polloi, the UK’s only privately owned train exudes the glamorous air of a bygone era. The Chairman’s Set, as it is known – a procession of repurposed former Caledonian Sleeper coachesin classic 1950s British Rail ‘blood and custard’ livery – is designed to be enjoyed. Sara Oliver, the interior designer who, along with the engineers and technicians at Independent Rail, has realised this vision, describes her client as a ‘rail enthusiast’. He already owned several locomotives by the time the pair first discussed the project in late 2017. His motivation for adding sleeper carriages was to facilitate extended trips to the most beautiful tracks in Britain, many of which run through remote parts of Scotland. Oliver’s first glimpse of the rolling stock that was to be herraw material wasin 2019 at a disused ironworksin Weardale, County Durham. The long-serving coaches were singularly uninspiring: ‘sticky purple carpets infused with spiltstew and surrounded by chrome and laminate’. Back at the yard, Independent Rail gutted the coaches, creating a near-cylindrical blank canvas on which Oliver’s ideas began to take shape. Part of the singularthrill ofsuch a project wasthe paucity of precedents. ‘There were no references,’ as Oliver puts it. Famously, the royal family have a train – although, since the carriages are owned by Network Rail, it’s not technically private. The royal train was the first thing Oliver Googled when she received the commission, ‘but it’s a lot of 1970s Formica and avocado bathrooms’. Nor did the client’s brief offer much in the way of guidance: his one stipulation was ‘please make sure that everything is tomato-soup proof’. Inspiration instead came from films – from Some Like It Hot to Murder on the Orient Express; notes from her son, who had conveniently just honeymooned on the Andean Explorer; and extensive research into trains around the world. Oliver’s pièce de résistance, a glass door with a juliet balcony at the end of the master bedroom, the last carriage in the set, drew from a Japanese train design, while the wooden panelling throughout replicated a section of Lutyens original that her daughter had stored in her barn. The interiors, as it turned out, had to be resistant to more than just tomato soup. For official approval, every single fabric had to be rigorously fire-tested (‘we literally had to pay for a company to burn beautiful Guy Goodfellow and Robert Kime fabricsto see how long they took to smoulder or burst into flames’). The G-force applications for all the objects had to be calculated, with furniture being fixed to minimise potential dangersin the event of an accident. There were other technical considerations. How to create a shower tray that prevents water spilling over the edge when the train tilts to one side? How to install a bronze McKinney & Co curtain pole into a curved metal ceiling? Even where items stood up to safety scrutiny, other effects of motion had to be taken into account. (An initial vision of opening the curtains with black Decostyle bamboo rods was abandoned when it was pointed out they would jangle annoyinglywhile the trainwasidling.) Oliver spent the first six months of the project drawing up the budget, itemising each object and material to be scrutinised by the operating company, Locomotive Services. The rigour paid off. The resulting suite of ‘rooms’ managesto be both stately and comfortable, with large squishy sofas (built in situ), luxurious soft furnishings (created with the expert help of Emma O’Hea) and gentle lighting. The main bedroom contains a super-king-sized bed, while the guest coach provides two mini-suites, each composed of a roomsized double bed, en suite and connecting dressing area, designed with considerable ingenuity to maximise space. In fact, throughout, there is a feeling of space in spite of the carriages’ compact dimensions. Antiques and adornments have been judiciously selected, with a few impactful piecesin each coach, among them a sculpture of a monkey supporting a bowl, now transformed into an upholstered stool; a gorgeous 1940s drinks trolley; and a pair of ebonised 1960s console tables.It allfeels minutely considered, context-appropriate and understatedly luxurious – a design achievement heightened by the fact that the team pulled off the refit amid the first Covid lockdown, working to an immovable deadline as suppliers temporarily shuttered around them. (Since the train runs on the same tracks as those used by every other operating company, taking it out is a serious – and expensive – logistical feat and must be organised several months in advance. Its maiden voyage, to the Kyle of Lochalsh in late September 2020, could not be rescheduled.) In keeping with greatrail tradition, the main wall decoration throughout is a series of exquisite marquetry panels made by the mother–daughter team at A. Dunn & Son in Chelmsford, Essex, whose family business has been adorning ships and trains since the first golden age of travel (Dunn marquetry enriched the Titanic). Several of the panels depict scenes from favourite nursery rhymes, but Oliver’s pick – ‘probably my favourite piece that I have ever commissioned’ – is the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ in the drawing room. Inspired by the Duke of Urbino’s studiolo, a masterwork of 15th-century intarsia now in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the lattice-work doors in the trompe-l’oeil design open to reveal, as well as the looped order of the garter, quill case and scopetta (small brush) that appear in the original, a model locomotive and two books: Boris DänzerKantof’s Full Steam Ahead and one whose spine is adorned with Albert Einstein’s field equation for general relativity. Trains played a singular role in Einstein’s thought experiments, used first to theorise and then to communicate relativity, allowing him to explain such revolutionary notions as time dilation – the fact that time slows as perceived by one observer compared with another, depending on their relative motion. Fitting, then, that the Chairman’s Set should perform an act of time travel all of its own ª The Chairman’s Train will be available to privately charter. For more information, [email protected]. To contact Sara Oliver,ring 07801 480086, or visit chinacoast.co.uk 100
The guest carriage features marquetry panels by Vivien and Cheryl Dunn from famous children’s stories. The windows turn from opaque to frosted at the touch of a button, to repel the eyes of onlookers (and trainspotters) 102
The two guest suites include a queen-sized double bed, an adjoining bathroom and a dressing room. The fabrics are by Guy Goodfellow and the trims are by Rebecca Cole, while there is bespoke printing on each of the pillows 103
Above: with a nod to the client’s laconic brief, Oliver chose a tomato-red fabric for the dining car’s curtain lining. Opposite: a marble-topped ebonised bookcase from Robert Kime and a side table from Brownrigg sit on a Sinclair Till carpet whose stripes recall the crimson lake and cream (‘blood and custard’) livery of the carriage exteriors 104
H I S T O R Y , M A D E T I M E L E S S I C O N I C L O N D O N G L A M O U R O U T S I D E , C O N T E M P O R A R Y L U X U R Y I N S I D E kimptonfitzroylondon.com | [email protected]
AFTERWORD
A detail of Giandomenico Tiepolo’s chinoiserie murals in Vicenza’s Villa Valmarana ai Nani, taken from the book ‘Italian Villas and Palaces’ (1959). See page 38. Photographer: Georgina Masson
We combine traditional craftsmanship with contemporary design in our handwoven rugs Vandra Rugs Stockholm, Sweden, www.vandra-rugs.com Represented in the UK by Sinclair Till www.sinclairtill.co.uk www.forbesandlomax.com +44 (0) 20 7738 0202 London I New York I LA THE INVISIBLE LIGHTSWITCH®
110 1 Exotic plants aside, virtually everything in and outside the minimalist Mustique house is a crisp stains-be-damned white, pristine parasol on the terrace included (page 97). For an equally dazzling substitute check out Ikea’s ‘Högön’, which is machinewashable, if not guano-proof (£50; ikea.com). What’s this, you ask. Why, it’s Seme di Pioggia (£5,500) by glass artist Ritsue Mishima, whose work is to be found at the Caribbean retreat Inspiration Some of the design effectsin thisissue, recreated by Gareth Wyn Davies and Ariadne Fletcher – and at Katie Jones’s gallery. Visit katiejonesjapan.com. 2 Tim Clinch dismisses his furnishings in Bulgaria as ‘old junk from the market’. If that’s the case, we’ll tag along next time he’s heading there. Until then, we’ll happily make do with a vintage hoop-arm rocking chair from Merchant & Found (£495; merchantandfound.com), which is akin to his (page 83), as well as two stand-ins for his charming green and red fabrics (pages 84 and 80) – Watts & Co’s ‘Davenport’ cotton damask (£96 per m; wattsandco.com) and Tinsmiths’ gingham (£17 per m; tinsmiths.co.uk). Throw in a ‘Grand’Ovale’ ceramic stove by La Castellamonte (from £8,640 approx; lacastellamonte.it) to match his wood burner (page 87) and a Falcon pan (£8.99; thornsdiy.com) in a red redolent of his batterie de cuisine (page 82) and we reckon we’d be as snug as a bug in a Balkan box bed. 3 Well chuffed: what a pleasing sight Britain’s only private train makes with its plush carriages straight out of Murder on the Orient Express. Hard to believe now but ’twasn’t ever thus. Mercifully, the ugly laminate that once graced the surfaces has given way to exquisite marquetry by A. Dunn & Son (page 102), among other adornments. For faux boiserie sure to make you burr with satisfaction, see San Patrignano’s devilishly 1 2
111 convincing wallcoverings from Paolo Moschino (shown from left: ‘Greca’ border, £50 per m; ‘Radica Ulivo’, £130 per m). Visit paolomoschino.com. Meanwhile, should you be craving a carpet along similar lines to the custom Sinclair Till number underfoot (page 99), we suggest you make tracks for Tim Page, where this ‘Connecticut Stripe’ flatweave is yours for £141.60 per sq m. Visit timpagecarpets.com. Beverages, sandwiches, pastries, light refreshments…? Every wellappointed sleeper/sitting room is in want of a dashing trolley such as the one sensibly anchored in the Chairman’s Set (page 99). Luckily, John Lewis has good – ahem – rolling stock in the form of its ‘Lovelace’ bar cart, a collaboration with Swoon (£429). Visit johnlewis.com. For full effect, park under a ‘Richmond’ lantern by Vaughan (£954), which can also be spotted against the same lookalike-Lutyens panelling. Visit vaughandesigns. com. Finally, that lovely Pink House by Rebecca Cole braid edging the bedcover of one of the berths (page 101): it’s called ‘Imolé’ and is £140 per m. Visit pinkhousebyrebeccacole.com. 4 Take a pew – or rather a classic butaque as reimagined by Clara Porset in the 1940s. Made by Luteca and sold by Tollgård (£4,678), it’s strikingly similar in silhouette to the seats spread around Geoffrey Bawa’s living room in Sri Lanka (page 76). Visit tollgard.com. It should be patently obvious by now that the architect had a thing for chairs. Lest there be any doubt, however, we may as well mention this limited-edition folio of his many designs for them – aptly upholstered in the fabric on his version of Mies van der Rohe’s ‘Barcelona’ (page 72). It costs £48 approx from the shop at Number 11. Visit geoffreybawashop. myshopbox.lk. 3 4
112 1 It’s not just the view out of the dining-room window in the Sicilian masseria (page 54) that’s mesmerising – so too is the one either side of it. For flanking the doors on to the juliet balcony is a pair of scenic screens that cleverly extends the panorama with what gardeners might call a ‘borrowed landscape’. The one depicted on Mis en Demeure’s ‘Mon Jardin Exotique’ (£2,650 approx) is Chinese rather than Italian, but no matter – we think it’s as lush as that foliage. Visit misendemeure.com. Like four-poster beds, canopied sofas such as those in the Priolisi– Hooks house are wonderfully cocooning (page 57). They also put us in mind of palanquins, which play to our potentate fantasies. By all means copy the uomini and ask a blacksmith to help, but Oka’s ‘Karama’ daybed (£1,695) might be by far the easier option. Visit oka.com. As for a plaster pendant similar to the one presiding over the vast living room (page 62), we dangle this before you: ‘James’ by Stephen Antonson (from £15,715) from the Invisible Collection. Visit theinvisiblecollection.com. And so to Artemest for Ceramica Pinto tiles (£150 for four) evocative of those in the kitchen (page 56). Visit artemest.com. 2 Tickled pink by all the fuchsia and gold in Topolina’s Tangier shop (page 64)? You’ll find a match for both in Mylands’ ‘FTT-006’ and ‘001’ (£31 and £52 per litre of emulsion). Visit mylands.com. Accessorise with a nice bit of fluff – namely a pochette by the woman herself (£30 approx; @topolinashop on Instagram) and a rug in her pet colours (page 66). This one’s a boucherouite from Larusi (£720; larusi.com). Last but not least, a Venetian mirror (page 65): step forward Lorfords, where this c1930 example costs £2,200. Visit lorfordsantiques.com » inspiration 1 2
One yearofprint anddigital editions foronly£28,savingover 75%* *Offer is subject to terms and availability, limited to new subscribers at UK addresses until 18 August 2023. Customers can cancel a subscription at any time and receive a full refund on any issues yet to be mailed. For exclusive international offers, visit magazineboutique.co.uk/woi/CWI20579. Alternatively you can email [email protected] or call +44 (0)1858 438819. For privacy notice and permission details and preferences, please visit condenast.co.uk/privacy. Call 01858 438819 (ref: CWI22782) Register at checkout.magazineboutique.co.uk/CWI22782 Or scan the QR code I am reliably informed thattucked away just inside Geoffrey Bawa’s former home in Colombo is a flawless 1934 Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe. The architect bought the car when he was a student at the Architectural Association in London in the 1950s. He was already in hislate thirties, and had grown disillusioned with his early legal career. Bawa would take the Rolls for a spin around London and, on occasion, head off in it to Rome for long weekends. Much later in life, at the height of his practice, Bawa used the same car to drive to the state opening of Sri Lanka’s parliament building, which he himself had designed. It was the last time he used it. He wasthe most prominent architect in Sri Lanka, and arguably in South Asia, associated with a style that came to be called ‘tropical Modernism’. He owed an intellectual debt to Minnette de Silva, a Sri Lankan practitioner who had studied at the AA before him, and was close to Le Corbusier, but developed a style that was all her own. His buildings reconciled the clean lines of the International Style with the lush and overgrown tropics, allowing the chaotic natural environment to not merely intrude into interiors but to become a constituent part of them. Apparently the Rolls is parked just behind the front door of his house, which is now known simply as Number 11. My tuktuk driver looks slightly surprised when I ask to be dropped off there. At the time of my visit the country is lurching out of near-bankruptcy, brought on by a government that islargely reviled. I have been on the Bawa trail,staying at the extraordinarily beautiful Last House on the south coast – beautiful because it exemplifies Bawa’s ability to somehow combine Modernist interiors with jungly surroundings. Interiors give way to exteriors, doors open on to vistas of corridors leading to more doors. But it’s also beautiful because noone else is there – the country’s parlous state and widely reported public protests mean that most tourists have stayed away. The Last House, so named both because it was Bawa’s concluding private commission and because it is the final residence on that beach, is splendidly empty. Life at Number 11 sounds like it was pretty good. Bawa bought a small bungalow in 1958 and, over the next decade, adjoined three neighbouring ones, converting them into the residence he lived in for the next30 years. The house seemsto have been designed so that Bawa might permanently live in a state of heightened aesthetic pleasure. He would have been able to sit up in bed and view a large frangipani
Abask. Visit abask.com. Altfield, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 7351 5893; altfield.com). The Bottle Club. Visit thebottleclub.com. C&C Milano, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 3583 3303; cec-milano.uk). Dajar. Visit dajar. co.uk. De Le Cuona, 44 Pimlico Rd, London SW1 (020 7730 0944; delecuona.com). Divertimenti. Visit divertimenti.co.uk. GP&J Baker, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 7351 7760; gpjbaker.com). H&M Home. Visit hm.com. The Heveningham Collection. Ring 01424 838483, or visit heveningham.co.uk. Ikea. Visit ikea.com. Indian Ocean, 155–163 Balham Hill, London SW12 (020 8675 4808; indian-ocean.co.uk). John Lewis. Ring 0345 610 0344, or visit johnlewis.com. La Double J. Visit ladoublej.com. Lelièvre, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 7352 4798; lelievreparis.com). Liberty, Regent St, London W1 (020 3893 3062; libertylondon.com). Loro Piana. Ring 020 4571 7732, or visit loropiana.com. Paolo Moschino, 8–14 Holbein Place, London SW1 (020 7730 8623; paolomoschino.com). Rockett St George. Ring 01444 253391, or visit rockettstgeorge.co.uk. Romo, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (01623 727017; romo.com). Selfridges, 400 Oxford St, London W1 (020 7160 6222; selfridges.com). Seletti. Visit seletti.com. The Stripes Company, Unit 1, Waverton Business Park, Saighton Lane, Chester, Ches CH3 7PD (01244 336387; thestripescompany.com). Svenskt Tenn, 5 Strandvägen, 11451 Stockholm (00 46 8 670 1600; svenskttenn.com). Swarovski, 328–330 Oxford St, London W1 (020 3640 8400; swarovski.com). Tissus d’Hélène, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 7352 9977; tissusdhelene.co.uk). Tori Murphy. Ring 01773 711128, or visit torimurphy.com. Zimmer & Rohde, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 (020 7351 7115; zimmer-rohde.com) ª Address Book Suppliersfeatured in thisissue 114
128 © phyllida barlow. courtesy hauser & wirth High Elegy This soaring, ebullient sculpture became Dame Phyllida Barlow’s swan song when she died unexpectedly this year. Itis,says Louisa Buck, an apttestamentto hertalent and brio object lesson ‘untitled: modernsculpture’, 2022, steel, filler, PVA, paint, polyurethane foam, spray paint, sand and paint stripper, 2.5 x 2.2 x 2.5m I firstsawPhyllida Barlow’s untitled: modernsculpture early this year, when it had its debut airing in the white expanse of Gagosian Gallery in Paris. The occasion was Hurly-burly, an exhibition celebrating the long friendship of Phyllida Barlow, Alison Wilding and Rachel Whiteread. I’d written a catalogue text and modernsculpture was one of two new pieces made for the show, on which Phyllida was still workingwhen the shipperswere due to arrive. She hadn’t finished it when I interviewed the trio at my kitchen table a month or so before the opening. With the artist’s unexpected death on 12 March, just eight days after the exhibition closed, it turned out to be among the last works she made. Yet even though a great deal of sadness now surrounds this sculpture, currently on display at Museo Chillida Leku, it can’t detract from its engaging, energetic spirit and breadth of association. Teetering on tiptoes, with a three-metre-high cluster of massed triangles topped by exuberant cut-out curlicues, the piece forms an imposing but also rather absurd presence: it immediately reminded me of Phyllida’s description of her sculptures as ‘unwanted guests’. Its forms are suggestive of a bunch of ice-cream cornets, a grove of stylised trees or a series of megaphones shouting speech bubbles, while at the same time playing with and off the abstract industrial forms of Modernism that are gently mocked in its teasing title. Like Barlow herself, modernsculpture is resolutely unpompous. She was an artist renowned for working on a monumental scale but always using the most unmonumental of media, whipping up giant rumbustious installations and seemingly precarious sculptures from cheap, repurposed materials – cardboard and concrete, ribbons of gaffer tape, plastic sheeting and wooden offcuts – that you’d normally find in a skip or a builder’s yard. Thesewere then vigorously manipulated, often sprayed and daubed with vivid paint, so that much of the time you had no idea what they were made of anyway. This sculpture, for instance, is in fact made of steel, but its claggy, distressed painted surfaces look as though they could just as easily be masking cardboard or MdF. Despite being one of Britain’s most esteemed artists – it was she who, in 2017, represented Britain at the Venice Biennale – Phyllida Barlow only came to international attention at the age of 60, following a show at the Serpentine and after being taken up by the mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth. Before then she had taught at the Slade for more than 40 years, where she was long revered as the most exceptional and generous of teachers, whose former students included Douglas Gordon, Tacita Dean, Martin Creed – and Rachel Whiteread. When I travelled to Parisforthe opening of Hurly-burly, Phyllida told me that modernsculpture had originally been inspired by a damaged Sovietsculpture thatshe had seen on a trip to Kyiv back in 2012 – that is, way before the outbreak of the current war. But, as with all great work, it continues to accrue different readings, with its blasted butstill jaunty forms conjuring connotations both of today’s Ukraine and the indefatigable, brilliant spirit of its much-missed maker ª Louisa Buck is an artcritic and contemporary-art correspondent at the ‘Art Newspaper’. ‘Phyllida Barlow’ runs at Museo Chillida Leku, 66 Barrio Jauregui, 20120 Hernani, Spain, until 22 Oct. For opening times, ring 00 34 943 335 959, or visit museochillidaleku.com
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