Frigiliana House, Andalucia Spain

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This home is located in one of the most beautiful villages in Andalucía, Spain. Frigiliana, is a town known for its maze of narrow cobbled streets lined by whitewashed houses, wrought-iron balconies and planters filled with brilliant red geraniums. The traditional house has been completely revamped with the use of modern furnishings and contemporary art. 

I adore the red leather Mickey Mouse chair sitting in the foyer, the whole arrangement looks like an art installation

  All images via Stuart Mcintyre

Celebrity Home: Diane Von Furstenberg's Manhattan Penthouse

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“When I was young, I lived like an old woman and when I got old, I had to live like a young person.”

- Diane Von Furstenberg

Her words neatly sum up the energy and playfulness her home. And although I usually do not like such opulent displays, in this case the sheer exuberance of it is infectious. It has been designed as a space to relax and be happy in, as seen from the positive words painted on the walls - Wisdom, Transformation, Joy. What a lovely idea! I'd like that for the times when I come home, jaded and exhausted. It would be nice to prop my feet up and read the reinforcing words to myself.

What strikes me about the interiors is how intensely alive they feel. Books and photographs crowd every surface of the penthouse. It is crammed with memories from her eventful life. The colour palette may not be to everyone's liking but it's perfect because it's a true reflection of Diane's personality. It is her space and no one else's.

A massive staircase cuts through the double height space; the curtain of steel cables studded with Swarovski crystals reflects light throughout the space.

Surrounded by Franz West chairs, the Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann table in Von Furstenberg’s office/living area often does double duty as a desk and dining table. A Joan Miró etching, a Francesco Clemente painting, and family photographs are displayed on the windowsill.

Diane von Furstenberg Home plates, tumblers, and flatware from Bloomingdale’s set the table for a luncheon in honor of artist Anh Duong

An Andy Warhol portrait of the designer is displayed near vintage chairs and a treelike table

Above a vintage Salvador Dalí sofa is a Duong self-portrait; the sconces are by André Dubreuil, and the tables are by Alexandra von Furstenberg.

A Moroccan patchwork coverlet decorates the bed

In the guest room is a Bert Stern photograph of Elizabeth Taylor; the carpet is a Von Furstenberg design for the Rug Company

The terrace, planted with grasses, sedum, moss, and phlox, is a collaboration between French landscape designer Louis Benech and Town and Gardens. 

The building has been refurbished by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood—Rem Koolhaas protégés and founders of the architecture firm WORKac. They merged the pair of Victorian redbrick buildings acquired by Diane in 2006 and added the rooftop lair containing a live/work space and, above that, a 900-square-foot master suite with a terrace.

All images and details courtesy Architectural Digest. Read the original article here.

Celebrity Home: Ben Kingsley

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I saw Hugo last night; a beautiful movie by Martin Scorcese in which Ben Kingsley has given one of his most poignant performances. The whole period look of the movie reminded me so much of Kingsley’s residence, Spelsbury House. The large period property is set in its three-acre grounds, surrounded by beautiful Oxfordshire countryside and was featured in Architecture Digest some years back. 

Here have a peep! I know you can’t wait to, but I also know it would surprise you. For unlike the typical over the top celebrity houses, Kingsley’s house is very warm and homely. A place for big family gatherings, for bringing up children and for growing old gracefully. It matches Kingsley’s personality very well, down to earth and completely unpretentious. 

This also comes across when he describes the house for AD, for he mentions all the small domestic details, “In the morning, when the walls of the kitchen glow yellow,” he explains, “it’s like coming into a pot of glowing honey. And the terracotta hallway in the afternoon is breathtaking—pure liquid light.” Kingsley based the house’s dramatic wall colors on the palette Henri Matisse used for his paintings in Morocco.

The entrance hall. Patrick Morrison’s The Accordionist, circa 1996, hangs in the stairwell. 

A Victorian pine table in the kitchen serves as a gathering place for Kingsley’s extended family. 

The furniture was produced locally in Oxfordshire and influenced by the history and mythology of the area.

Kingsley purchased the rugs in the living room while traveling in Morocco. 

An Oscar, won for the actor’s work in Gandhi, stands in a corner of the living room on a Rococo style console table and near a walnut William Morris armchair and a 19th-century painted Italian mirror

The bedroom features more finds from Ben's travels - a rosewood four-poster bed, a Swiss blanket chest and a Louis XV–style settee.

A couple of views of the house and formally laid out gardens. 

 All images courtesy Architecture Digest.

This is what dreams are made of

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Stuff of dreams, that's what this hotel is. Heritage architecture, spectacular views, warmth that only a family run place could have, it's got everything and more. Located in the heart of Positano on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, La Sirenuse was the summer home of the Marchesi Sersale family before they converted it into hotel. The Marchesi family heirlooms and paintings add a whole new dimension to the décor and make it feel like a home instead of a hotel. I specially love the colourful tiles in the Sun-filled rooms.

Well, I'd better start saving if I am going to stay there next Summer. Such enticing prettiness comes with a matching price tag! 

All images via La Sirenuse

Vermeer: Women, Secrets and Silence

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I was so excited when I heard about this exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, that I jumped out of my chair immediately and ran over to see it. Now before you think I am crazy, let me tell you that my department is next door to the museum. Not that I would have missed it if it were not, Vermeer has always been one of my favourite painters.

Having only studied about Vermeer’s paintings in books before, I was eager to see them in the flesh. And the exhibition did not disappoint, with a delightful theme and full of radiant masterpieces, Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence had me rapt from the start.

While Vermeer’s name is being used to entice the crowds, only four of the 32 paintings are actually by him. The rest are by other Dutch master painters such as Gerard Ter Borch, Pieter de Hooch, Nicholas Maes and Jacobus Vrel. The exhibition brings together these masters under a brilliantly curated theme, concentrating on a significant era in Dutch paintings that featured scenes of 17th century women in their homes.

Vermeer: A lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman

In canvas after canvas, we see maidservants and their middle class mistresses performing seemingly mundane tasks: sewing, spinning, fetching water, scraping parsnips, breastfeeding and playing the virginal. The house is shown to be spick and span, reflecting the Dutch desire for cleanliness, order and harmony within the home.

But these mundane tasks take on a new meaning when we realize that these paintings depict the seldom seen intimacy of the Dutch household, a silent and often mysterious domestic realm, inhabited almost exclusively by women and children and closed to the outside world. In the 17th century this domestic privacy was highly protected, the houses even had a special front hall (voorhuis) where tradesmen brought their wares. Servant girls met them here and took selected items to the wife living in the personal spaces at the back. The painter invites us to take a glimpse inside the house via the half open door; patterns in the flooring and brickwork further lead our eyes inside the house.

Samuel Van Hoogstraten: View of an Interior, c1658

These domestic scenes would have been the only way to see a woman in the private realm of her home. The artists’ relationship with their subjects varies from voyeurism to empathy to curious scrutiny and lends a strange excitement to these simple scenes.

Jacob Ochtervelt: A Fishmonger at the Door c.1663

The star of the show is unquestionably Vermeer’s The Lacemaker, on loan from the Louvre, and displayed in Britain for the first time. Seeing this enigmatic painting in the context of works by Vermeer’s contemporaries only enhances its value. 
 

The Lacemaker

But the painting I liked the most was the Woman at the Window the eerie interior scene by Jacobus Vrel, in which a woman sits alone by an opaque, moonlit window to behold a lone child – or the ghost of a child – staring at her from the darkness outside. This painting can be interpreted in so many different ways that I can gaze at it for hours.

Jacobus Vrel: Woman at a Window, Waving at a Girl, c. 1650

I also liked the The Courtyard in Delft by Pieter de Hooch – this painting tells a story through carefully detailed architecture as the decayed garden wall on the right contrasts with the well-preserved house on the left.

Pieter de Hooch: The Courtyard of a House in Delft c.1658

All images courtesy of Fitzwilliam Museum and Yale Books

Kate Spade pop-up store in London

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