photos: peter fehrentz
there’s a saying: the bartender is his own best customer. but in design, it tends to be the other way around: when you work for yourself, you often get to know a very demanding client. that’s how we felt when we bought a house near frankfurt: we really wanted to live in a 70s flat roofbungalow with clear lines, flowing transitions and a direct connection to nature. but achieving this goal was a little more challenging than we had imagined, even though it was our fourth interior project for us privately.
yes, we were aware that a fifty year old house needed a lot of renovations. but the substance was good (after all, we bought from the architect who had built the house and lived in it since 1970). nevertheless, requirements and lifestyles have changed a lot in half a century. so we started by changing the floor plan, moving passages and removing walls. but we wanted to strengthen the basic character rather than change it. two basic ideas guided us: firstly, “plastic meets stone”. a typical material of the seventies, grounded by the stability and reliability of brick, marble and terrazzo. and secondly: “mix the decades”.
some of the furniture could have been part of the bungalow’s original furnishings – others could have been added to or replaced in subsequent years. take the dining chairs, for example: the ‚poney‘ swivel chair, designed by gianni moscatelli for formanova, first shown in 1970, newly upholstered in a dark green kvadrat fabric. they clash visually with the bright red high-gloss lacquer table ‘tobi-ishi’ by barber & osgerby for b&b italia – and even more so in terms of history, as the table was designed in 2012. the terrazzo tile floor throughout the living area is new, but could also have been laid in exactly the same way at the time of construction. back then, the very linear kitchen unit could not have been made of ‘himacs’ (a modern translucent mineral-acrylic resin mixture) – but the courage to use a light blue colour seems typical. the flokati carpet in the living area is very seventies – the ‘todo modo’ sofa was designed by jean-michel wilmotte in 1993 for the parisian louvre.
the private area comprises two bedrooms – with carpeted floors and a rather calm colour scheme. the bathroom turns every morning into a good morning: the shower surrounds me with light blue mosaic tiles and the orange-coloured washbasin makes me smile every time. perhaps the most inspiring area (besides the wonderful, japanese-inspired garden) is the home office one floor below with a long desk for two, sofa corner, art objects and a library in a pink steel heavy-duty shelf (matching the pink louvre curtains).
from our point of view, design is not just a question of looks or a means of impressing friends and neighbours. it’s about bringing joy to the people who live in these interiors. you spend so much time in your home – it would be a shame to have too much ‘beige’ in your life. (but a little bit doesn’t hurt either – after all, our entire kitchen block is a carpenter’s work in exactly this colour).
