Chamber ofsecrets - Living Architecture
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T he Life House commands respect. Visitors must remove their shoes and socks on the threshold, and go barefoot: this way, they won’t spoil the cool white polished terrazzo floors. It means that arriving in this creation by the architectural designer John Pawson on a wild Welsh hilltop is much like entering a place of worship, except that the rituals and beliefs revolve around space and light. It is to Pawson that we owe the trend for shop interiors resembling art galleries, with dresses, handbags and underwear displayed in voluminous space like so many Picassos. Perhaps this is to be expected from a man who cut his teeth on galleries before going off to design Calvin Klein’s first flagship store in Manhattan, at which point his career went stratospheric. He has also given us “thinking kitchens” with brushed steel and self-shutting drawers; restaurants where starched tablecloths and puffy chairs have been elbowed aside by industrial chic; everything from monasteries to knives and forks. When his new £83m Design Museum, created inside the grade II* listed former Commonwealth Institute, in Kensington, west London, opens in November, his hallmark lavish discipline will create another sensation. He designed the Life House on this hill in Powys, near the Shropshire border, at the invitation of the philosopher Alain de Botton, on behalf of Living Architecture, the not-for-profit outfit set up to encourage us all to love modern architecture a little bit more. Its buildings are available for short-term lets, offering a sort of high-end architectural joy ride. Yet joy isn’t high on Pawson’s list. He is more of a thinker. He has thought so hard about every detail, every tented ceiling and uplit hand basin, that he effectively remotely controls the behaviour of whoever lays their head down here. At first glance, the Life House offers little hint of what is to come. It’s almost unnoticeable in the landscape, crouching low on the hill, with the deportment and shape of a barn. How deceptive appearances can be. “The ambition was to create a space, monastic in quality, to distract people from their normal concerns, help visitors rethink, reflect, pause,” de Botton says. “People have always said of Pawson that even if he is designing an underwear shop, it has a hint of a church about it. But here we asked him to go to extremes and work to a low budget. He has some fancy clients, so he graciously complained about that. But in the end he has a produced a house that is noble, reveals itself slowly and, yes, is very bossy.” Shoes off, then, toes to terrazzo, doors to manual. It feels like a spaceship. The exterior is cloaked Designed by the minimalist’s minimalist, John Pawson, this sleek holiday home in Wales is full of surprises. E Llandrindod Wells Llanbister A483 A44 10 miles Pen-y-Bont Shropshire Hills AONB Life House Aberystwyth Chamber of secrets in charcoal-black brick; the interior is hollowed out like the inside of a meringue, lined with layers of thin white Danish brick. The voluminous glass hallway leads to a long L-shaped corridor with the living room and bedrooms off it. The corridor is not a friendly place — no corridor is — so it must be here for a reason. This one gets darker and darker until there is almost no light at all. Ahead, two heavy wooden doors open into a black chamber. The only things inside it are two glazed black stone beds and a light shaft high in the roof. It feels like a tomb and makes the blood chill. Etched on a gravestone on the floor is one of Pascal’s Pensées: “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” The house is already behaving like a dark fairy tale, taking us on an adventure with transforming possibilities. A glass of wine is required to calm the nerves. The bottle is chilled in one of the two fridges, but the house itself is stifling, as the black bricks absorb the heat on a hot day. Among the massed ranks of self-closing cupboards, all exactly the same, where might the corkscrew be? It is like playing pelmanism with a set of beautifully made blank cards. Just before madness sets in, the corkscrew is found lurking in a hidden compartment above the waste-bin drawer, which itself has four sections, each for a different type of rubbish. Phew. The kitchen is an important part of the Pawson experience. He is the man who designed a highly admired E ven the kitchen cupboards keep you guessing, finds Caroline McGhie minimalist kitchen for the Belgian company Obumex, a study in geometry where the only round shape is in the tap. The firm describes him as “a living legend”. Pawson, who was educated at Eton and spent many years in Japan, states that his aim is to subdue chaos, not to allow a single machine to become an object of interest. There is no worship of the coffee maker here. What annoys him most is that people talk about the “simplicity” of his work. “People think it’s just a matter of ‘Paint it white, put in a shadow gap and not too much stuff’,” he says. “They think it is restrained, but being obsessed is the opposite of restrained.” Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, describes him as the guru of “the art of nothing”. He luxuriates in the materials he uses, here the pinkish wood of Douglas fir on the ceilings, and a millefeuille of brick. Unaware that his desire for calm can cause near-nervous breakdowns among would-be cooks and drinkers, Pawson says he wants the kitchen to be a place where “all the moves feel instinctive —you don’t want to take the duration of your stay to learn the choreography”. The house insists on tidiness. “Everything has a place, and all those places are behind doors or inside drawers, because I prefer it this way.” So you clean up your act and like it or lump it. The kitchen runs seamlessly into a dining area with a beautiful round marble-topped dining table, also designed by Pawson. At the far end, it transmutes into a living area with a large corner sofa the colour of elephant hide and a homey, glazed, cream-tiled Scandinavian-style woodburner. Inside the Life House, all is monochrome. Outside, gossiping sheep roam and cow parsley riots on the green hills. The interior palette of black and white reflects the blackened gorse and rough moor grass, according to Pawson, who must have designed it in winter. One wonders if the locals minded about such a house landing here. “There were fears, and we did talk a lot to local people and to planners,” de Botton says. “We try to find land where an old postwar bungalow might have become a bit of an eyesore, and we are interested in bleak and deserted landscapes.” This spot near Llandrindod Wells offered both. It opened this year, following last year’s addition to the collection, Grayson Perry’s House for Essex, which is wildly colourful and jolly — it could hardly be more different. “But it is still exploring the idea of narrative architecture,” de Botton says. In the narrative of the Life House, the bedrooms are three gold caskets from which you must choose. The first, dedicated to music, has a state-of-the-art sound system and a collection of CDs from the Beatles to Bach’s cello suites. The second is about bathing, and has a huge double-ended tub mounted in an altar of polished white travertine, which is in turn wrapped in windows with butterflies flitting against the glass. The third is given over to literature. Volumes of Aristotle, Freud, Woolf, Larkin, Tolstoy, Winnicott and de Botton himself are not crushed like prisoners into bookcases; rather, each stands on its own shelf, accorded the weight and significance of a Ming vase. This is a house of light and dark, its tail rammed into the earth where the dark chamber lies, its spine the corridor that journeys towards the light. Beyond the glass entrance, it bursts out onto the hill and lands the visitor in the blazing sun, where two more stone beds stand either side of an engraved tablet, the mirror image of its subterranean counterpart. This one bears Henry David Thoreau’s words about choosing to live in the wild, “to see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”. So, are the dark and light chambers for contemplation effectively tomb and womb, or vice versa? Are we being taken through an architectural metaphor for the journey of life, passing through private personal space and through the hall for feasting from a dark space towards the blinding light? “There is no single answer to your question,” Pawson says. “I work slowly, developing each room and refining the sequence of spaces, thinking always in terms of atmosphere and light. It is called Life House because I wanted to make a place that made everyday rituals feel special.” Now, where did he put those spoons? The Life House sleeps six and is available to rent through Living Architecture for £1,600-£3,000 a week, with a one-week minimum stay; living-architecture.co.uk ”People think it is restrained, but being obsessed is the opposite of being restrained” Gilbert McCarragher 28.08.2016 GET THE LOOK The cream-tiled woodburner is by Dick van Hoff. £7,995; bigfire.co.uk Bespoke rug from the Rug Company. £775 a sq metre; therugcompany.com The sofa, dining table and coffee table are Pawson designs. benchmarkfurniture.com The tableware is from his collection at When Objects Work. www.whenobjectswork.com John Pawson Signature kitchen. From €80,000, including installation; obumex.be/en/ kitchens SUNDAY TIMES DIGITAL See the rugged Welsh location of the Life House and take a video tour, in our tablet edition or at thesundaytimes.co.uk The supply of the material by The Publisher does not constitute or imply any endorsement or sponsorship of any product, service , company or organisation. Material may not be edited, altered, photocopied, electronically scanned or otherwise dealt in with out the written permission of The Publisher. Times News Paper, News UK & Ireland Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF ema il: enquiries@ newssyndication.com. Reprinted with permission by The Reprint and Licensing Centre tel: 0207 501 1085. HOME
Transcript of Chamber ofsecrets - Living Architecture
The Life House commandsrespect. Visitors must remove theirshoes and socks on the threshold,and go barefoot: this way, they won’tspoil the cool white polished terrazzofloors. It means that arriving inthis creation by the architecturaldesigner John Pawson on a wildWelsh hilltop is much like entering aplace of worship, except that therituals and beliefs revolve aroundspace and light.It is to Pawson that we owe the
trend for shop interiors resemblingart galleries, with dresses, handbagsand underwear displayed involuminous space like so manyPicassos. Perhaps this is to beexpected from a man who cut histeeth on galleries before going off todesign Calvin Klein’s first flagshipstore in Manhattan, at which pointhis career went stratospheric.He has also given us “thinking
kitchens” with brushed steel andself-shutting drawers; restaurantswhere starched tablecloths andpuffy chairs have been elbowedaside by industrial chic; everythingfrom monasteries to knives andforks. When his new £83m DesignMuseum, created inside the grade II*listed former CommonwealthInstitute, in Kensington, westLondon, opens in November, hishallmark lavish discipline willcreate another sensation.
He designed the LifeHouse on this hill in Powys,
near the Shropshire border, at theinvitation of the philosopher Alainde Botton, on behalf of LivingArchitecture, the not-for-profitoutfit set up to encourage us all tolove modern architecture a little bitmore. Its buildings are available forshort-term lets, offering a sort ofhigh-end architectural joy ride.Yet joy isn’t high on Pawson’s list.
He is more of a thinker. He hasthought so hard about every detail,every tented ceiling and uplit handbasin, that he effectively remotelycontrols the behaviour of whoeverlays their head down here.At first glance, the Life House
offers little hint of what is to come.It’s almost unnoticeable in thelandscape, crouching low on the hill,with the deportment and shape of abarn. How deceptive appearancescan be. “The ambition was to createa space, monastic in quality, todistract people from their normalconcerns, help visitors rethink,reflect, pause,” de Botton says.“People have always said of
Pawson that even if he is designingan underwear shop, it has a hintof a church about it. But here weasked him to go to extremes andwork to a low budget. He has somefancy clients, so he graciouslycomplained about that. But in theend he has a produced a house that isnoble, reveals itself slowly and, yes,is very bossy.”Shoes off, then, toes to terrazzo,
doors to manual. It feels like aspaceship. The exterior is cloaked
Designed by the minimalist’s minimalist, John Pawson, this sleek holiday home in Wales is full of surprises. E
Llandrindod Wells
LlanbisterA483A44
10miles
Pen-y-Bont
ShropshireHills AONB
Life House
Aberystwyth
Chamberof secrets
in charcoal-black brick; the interioris hollowed out like the inside of ameringue, lined with layers of thinwhite Danish brick. The voluminousglass hallway leads to a long L-shapedcorridor with the living room andbedrooms off it. The corridor is nota friendly place — no corridor is —so it must be here for a reason.This one gets darker and darker
until there is almost no light at all.Ahead, two heavy wooden doorsopen into a black chamber. The onlythings inside it are two glazed blackstone beds and a light shaft high inthe roof. It feels like a tomb andmakes the blood chill. Etched on agravestone on the floor is one ofPascal’s Pensées: “All men’s miseriesderive from not being able to sit ina quiet room alone.” The house isalready behaving like a dark fairytale, taking us on an adventurewith transforming possibilities.A glass of wine is required to calm
the nerves. The bottle is chilled inone of the two fridges, but the houseitself is stifling, as the black bricksabsorb the heat on a hot day. Amongthe massed ranks of self-closingcupboards, all exactly the same,where might the corkscrew be? It islike playing pelmanismwith a setof beautifully made blank cards.Just before madness sets in, the
corkscrew is found lurking in ahidden compartment above thewaste-bin drawer, which itself hasfour sections, each for a differenttype of rubbish. Phew.The kitchen is an important part
of the Pawson experience. He is theman who designed a highly admired
Even the kitchen cupboards keep you guessing, finds Caroline McGhie
minimalist kitchen for the Belgiancompany Obumex, a study ingeometry where the only roundshape is in the tap. The firmdescribes him as “a living legend”.Pawson, who was educated at
Eton and spent many years in Japan,states that his aim is to subdue chaos,not to allow a single machine tobecome an object of interest. There isno worship of the coffee maker here.What annoys him most is that
people talk about the “simplicity”of his work. “People think it’s justa matter of ‘Paint it white, put in ashadow gap and not too muchstuff’,” he says. “They think it isrestrained, but being obsessed isthe opposite of restrained.” DeyanSudjic, director of the DesignMuseum, describes him as the guruof “the art of nothing”. He luxuriatesin the materials he uses, here thepinkish wood of Douglas fir on theceilings, and a millefeuille of brick.Unaware that his desire for calm
can cause near-nervous breakdownsamong would-be cooks anddrinkers, Pawson says he wants thekitchen to be a place where “all themoves feel instinctive —you don’twant to take the duration of yourstay to learn the choreography”.The house insists on tidiness.“Everything has a place, and allthose places are behind doors orinside drawers, because I prefer itthis way.” So you clean up your actand like it or lump it.The kitchen runs seamlessly into
a dining area with a beautiful roundmarble-topped dining table, alsodesigned by Pawson. At the far end,it transmutes into a living area witha large corner sofa the colour ofelephant hide and a homey, glazed,cream-tiled Scandinavian-stylewoodburner.Inside the Life House, all is
monochrome. Outside, gossipingsheep roam and cow parsley riotson the green hills. The interiorpalette of black and white reflectsthe blackened gorse and rough moorgrass, according to Pawson, whomust have designed it in winter.
One wonders if the locals mindedabout such a house landing here.“There were fears, and we did talk alot to local people and to planners,”de Botton says. “We try to find landwhere an old postwar bungalowmight have become a bit of aneyesore, and we are interested inbleak and deserted landscapes.”This spot near Llandrindod Wellsoffered both. It opened this year,following last year’s addition to thecollection, Grayson Perry’s Housefor Essex, which is wildly colourfuland jolly — it could hardly be moredifferent. “But it is still exploringthe idea of narrative architecture,”de Botton says.In the narrative of the Life House,
the bedrooms are three gold casketsfrom which you must choose. Thefirst, dedicated to music, has astate-of-the-art sound system anda collection of CDs from the Beatlesto Bach’s cello suites. The secondis about bathing, and has a hugedouble-ended tub mounted in analtar of polished white travertine,which is in turn wrapped in windowswith butterflies flitting against theglass. The third is given over toliterature. Volumes of Aristotle,Freud, Woolf, Larkin, Tolstoy,Winnicott and de Botton himself arenot crushed like prisoners intobookcases; rather, each stands on itsown shelf, accorded the weight andsignificance of a Ming vase.This is a house of light and dark,
its tail rammed into the earth wherethe dark chamber lies, its spine thecorridor that journeys towards thelight. Beyond the glass entrance, itbursts out onto the hill and lands thevisitor in the blazing sun, where twomore stone beds stand either side ofan engraved tablet, the mirror imageof its subterranean counterpart. Thisone bears Henry David Thoreau’swords about choosing to live in thewild, “to see if I could not learn whatit had to teach and not, when I cameto die, discover that I had not lived”.So, are the dark and light chambers
for contemplation effectively tomband womb, or vice versa? Are webeing taken through an architecturalmetaphor for the journey of life,passing through private personalspace and through the hall forfeasting from a dark space towardsthe blinding light? “There is nosingle answer to your question,”Pawson says. “I work slowly,developing each room and refiningthe sequence of spaces, thinkingalways in terms of atmosphere andlight. It is called Life House becauseI wanted to make a place that madeeveryday rituals feel special.” Now,where did he put those spoons?
� The Life House sleeps six and isavailable to rent through LivingArchitecture for £1,600-£3,000 aweek, with a one-week minimumstay; living-architecture.co.uk
”People think it isrestrained, but beingobsessed is the oppositeof being restrained”
Gilbert McCarragher
28 .08 . 2016
GET THE LOOK� The cream-tiled woodburneris by Dick van Hoff.£7,995; bigfire.co.uk
�Bespoke rug from the RugCompany. £775 a sq metre;therugcompany.com
� The sofa, dining table andcoffee table are Pawson designs.benchmarkfurniture.com
� The tableware is from hiscollection at When Objects Work.www.whenobjectswork.com
� John Pawson Signature kitchen.From €80,000, includinginstallation; obumex.be/en/kitchens
SUNDAY TIMES DIGITALSee the rugged Welsh location ofthe Life House and take a videotour, in our tablet edition or at
thesundaytimes.co.uk
The supply of the material by The Publisher does not constitute or imply any endorsement or sponsorship of any product, service , company or organisation. Material may not be edited, altered, photocopied, electronically scanned or otherwise dealt in without the written permission of The Publisher. Times News Paper, News UK & Ireland Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF email: [email protected]. Reprinted with permission by The Reprint and Licensing Centre tel: 0207 501 1085.
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