Modern Classic

A Contemporary Take on Tradition

“I believe that a less severe principle can be found — the mixing of styles. The noble frames that came to us from the past can receive today’s creations. The house that we build now can welcome ancient things of beauty.” — Jean-Michel Frank

It’s important that we appreciate and learn from the past in terms of architecture and design, and, quite understandably, it holds an appeal in terms of aesthetics. The reason cities like Rome, Paris, Istanbul and Athens are such magnets for tourists is that people are inherently fascinated by the past and the way in which it has played a part in influencing contemporary culture and the arts. For many years curators have exploited this universally held passion for antiquity as a means of drawing in throngs of paying visitors; as can be seen to great effect in the eagerly awaited refurbishment of the Hôtel de la Marine, Paris, a grand historic monument on the Place de la Concorde, Paris, built by Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1698-1782), architect of the Petit Trianon for Louis XV between 1758 and 1774. The building is inextricably intertwined in the countries historic fabric, from inception to the present day; it is the site where witnesses watched Louis XVI’s execution from its now-iconic colonnaded terrace, Marie Antoinette’s death certificate was signed, Napoleon I and Josephine celebrated their coronation ball and the act abolishing slavery in France became law. Rather than any attempt at modern intervention (excluding the newly opened and eclectically decorated café and restaurant now flanking the Cour d’Honneur), the private apartments on display have been painstakingly staged as if Madame and Monsieur de Ville-d’Avray (who commissioned this elegant ensemble of rooms) have just left; the dining room table strewn with fruit and empty bottles of wine, napkins slung over chair backs, and perhaps somewhat more inexplicably, an enormous basket of oysters, upturned over the floor. Joseph Achkar, an authority on eighteenth-century design who oversaw the project with his partner, Michel Charrière, worked miracles in peeling back the layers to Louis XV — sourcing the furniture, clocks and objets d’art that once adorned the rooms (though perhaps a little less emphasis on the theatrics, for e.g. the faux flickering candles, would benefit what is otherwise an extraordinary accomplishment). Excluding the recent spread in the December issue of World of Interiors as beautifully photographed by Ivan Terestchenko, plentiful images of the buildings sumptuously restored interiors have for some time now been seen on social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest — and in particular close ups of paint colours, panelling and textiles. Indeed the buildings seductively muted interiors, richly layered with woven silks and hand crafted passementiere are proving a hit with the interiors world, who are keen to emulate such an elegantly refined atmosphere.

A portrait of Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller by American artist Andy Warhol, executed in 1967, image c/o Sotheby’s

A pair of bronze andirons (c. 1939) designed by Alberto Giacometti for the Rockefeller apartment, image c/o Sotheby’s

For years the allure of such rooms has been plain to see as for e.g. in the late 1930s when richer than Croesus businessman and philanthropist Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-1979) commissioned Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941) — who was perhaps the greatest interior designer of the twentieth century — to decorate a floor of his newly renovated triplex at 810 Fifth Avenue, New York. “Love”, “Passion” and “Ecstasy” were words Rockefeller used when he talked of what American art historian Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (1902-1981), a great friend and founding director of MoMA, called his “insatiable appetite for art”. He was both an activist, who commissioned major works from some of the greatest artists of his generation, and a globalist, who embraced everything from the work of twentieth-century Dadaists and Surrealists, to the sculpture of Africa and eighteenth-century European porcelain. Yet interestingly, unlike his art-collecting contemporaries, for e.g. Dominique de Menil (1908-1997) and Marie-Laure de Noailles (1902-197), whose spartan, modernist homes were designed by architects Philip Johnson (1906-2005) and Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945) respectively; Rockefeller wanted his interiors to echo the elegant, classical style of Louis XV, à la Hôtel de la Marine, whilst at the same time representing his diverse interests both in modern art and objects. In the spirit of six degrees of separation, Rockefeller’s sister-in-law Blanchette Ferry Rockefeller (1909-1992) would later commission Johnson — MoMA’s then mercurial director of architecture — to design her famous glass clad “guest house” at 242 East 52nd Street — a space in which to store her modern art collection, a genre which her husband John D. Rockefeller III (1906-1978) neither understood nor appreciated; perhaps it was such an entrenched familial aesthetic division that spurred Nelson’s desire to bridge the gap between ancien régime and art-moderne. Undoubtedly what drew Rockefeller to Frank was a shared enthusiasm for art and culture, which at least in part was attributable to the designers avant-garde connections; indeed it was his frequent collaborations with contemporary painters and sculptors that set him apart from the pack, and in particular, his work with Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Salvador Dali (1904-1989) and Emilio Terry (1890-1969) amongst others.

A console by Alberto Giacometti , commissioned by Jean-Michel Frank for the Rockefeller apartment, image c/o Sotheby’s

Starting in 1938, Rockefeller and Frank worked together for two years curating art and appointing some of the biggest names in design. Often thought of as the maître of understatement, for much of Frank’s career he opted for a neutral colour palette, allowing volume and form to dictate the spaces he created. In the years since the designer’s tragic and untimely death at the age of 46, the stylized black and white images of the elegant parchment-clad salon he designed for Marie-Laure and Charles de Noailles’s (1891-1981) storied Hôtel Bischoffsheim at Place des États-Unis have become shorthand for le style Frank (though few people realize Man Ray’s (1890-1976) atmospherically charged photographs were taken before the art had been hung, resulting in an overall impression far more austere and subdued than that necessarily intended). Over time however, color slowly started to become part of Frank’s mature aesthetic, a shift in part attributable to his work with Adolphe Chanaux (1887-1965), but also a collaboration with the prodigiously talented artist and designer Christian “Bébé” Bérard (1902-1949). Frank’s aesthetic vision is characterized by the equal importance he placed on form and texture, and for the salon of Rockefeller’s apartment, he commissioned Bérard to design a carpet that would stand up to the richness and quality his overall decorative scheme; the artist, who had worked as a fashion illustrator for Coco Chanel (1883-1971) and her arch nemesis Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973), painted an extraordinary expressionist gouache of abstract flowers on a raspberry pink background — reminiscent of the sort of vivid tapestries seen in eighteenth century apartments.

Giacometti was heavily criticized by the surrealists who considered such commissions a betrayal, even a kind of decline, but nevertheless, the artists now iconic and much imitated Tête de Femme (“Figure”) table and floor lamps became an important presence in the interiors of the Frank’s most important commissions; for that matter, Rockefeller was drawn to this aesthetic in which the archaic and primitive coexist alongside important works of European classicism, and it was undoubtedly one of the key reasons for Frank’s appointment. For the 810 Fifth Avenue apartment, Giacometti would conceive a fantastical suite of furnishings in gilt plaster and bronze; including two identical pairs of of sculptural gilt metal andirons — each comprised of three stacked lozenges — designed to be presented in concert with two ten-foot-tall monumental murals executed by Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Le Chant (1938), and Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Untitled (1939), to frame fireplaces at either end the salon (Later in life, Rockefeller would recall watching with “fascination” as Léger created the mural). A true expression of Frank and Rockefeller’s combined vision; these unique masterworks manage perfectly to bridge antiquity and the contemporary art of the period. From the very outset of his career Frank had been inspired by the eighteenth century tradition of fine French cabinetry (as had, for that matter, many of the great modernist designers including Marc du Plantier (1901-1975), Jean Royère (1902-1981) and Paul Dupré-Lafon (1900-1971)), both in respect of the furniture and interiors he created. What we can see at the Rockefeller apartment is how he cleverly distilled those elements that make historical interiors so appealing — wood panelling, gilt gold furniture, Aubusson rugs, organdy curtains, hand-woven silks and array of artworks — into an interior scheme that is unmistakably modern and entirely of its era.

The main salon of the Rockefeller apartment designed by Jean-Michel Frank, echoing the elegant, classical style of Louis XV

For those contemporary interior designers and architects approaching a traditional brief, lessons can be learned from Frank’s approach; in that a slavish approximation of a period interior, or more loosely, an eclectic mishmash of quaint historical oddities (which, depressingly, seems the prevailing “trend” in UK interiors) are not the only ways in which to capture the comfort and elegance of bygone eras. Of course, in order to dissect a stylistic genre in the same way as Frank at 810 Fifth Avenue (with the resultant interiors representing perfectly a dichotomy of two worlds — classical styles and contemporary art) requires an inherent understanding of art history and architecture as well as proportion and scale. This is something, by and large, lacking in contemporary interiors and particularly so with the increasing number of “Insta-famous” designers who are essentially little more than glorified stylists (Frank himself may have had no formal training, but he was a connoisseur of the decorative arts and exception rather than the rule). That’s not to say that there are not those with similar ability and aesthetic inclinations, who are able to conjure skilfully coherent schemes combining multiple stylistic influences, the likes of India Mahdavi, Alexandra and Michael Misczynski, the husband-and-wife team behind Atelier AM, Steven Volpe and Andre Mellone of the eponymous New York based studio. England is a country that places a strong emphasis on its historical fabric, as well as an often overly-idealized image of an idyllic past; perhaps accordingly the interiors sector faces something of a struggle in dragging itself once and for all into the twenty-first century.

Ben Weaver