Showing posts with label SPECIAL SERIES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPECIAL SERIES. Show all posts

Monday, May 21, 2012

SPECIAL SERIES: The Beds and Bedrooms of the Richie-Riches (part 4)

This time I thought I would do a fun post with a tiny satirical note on a theme that is - of course - about beds and bedrooms again. The title says "The Bedrooms of the Richy-Riches" and its all about spending money not about style and taste...

Why not decorate an apartment like this -  a luxurious apartment in St. Petersburg designed by Igor Gremitsky, located in St. Petersburg, in the style of the Rococo era?
According to Wikipedia Rococo is...
"...an 18th-century artistic movement and style, which affected several aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, decoration, literature, music and theatre. The Rococo developed in the early part of the 18th century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry and strict regulations of the Baroque, especially that of the Palace of Versailles. In such a way, Rococo artists opted for a more jocular, florid and graceful approach to Baroque art and architecture. Rococo art and architecture in such a way was ornate and made strong usage of creamy, pastel-like colours, asymmetrical designs, curves and gold. Unlike the more politically focused Baroque, the Rococo had more playful and often witty artistic themes. With regards to interior decoration, Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings." 
So the livingroom as below, designed by Igor Gremitsky, might be the modern and slightly wacky version of  a Rococo style room:


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In the same style you can also find a luxurious kid's bedroom. I try to imagine what would happen if one of the kids who could live here gets hold of crayons and starts her/his creative juices newly on the walls (as my little sister did with our bedroom right after it had been newly wallpapered) - my Dad was not amused...

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In comparison the following bedrooms are a bit more decent although gold has been used in abundance here also which seems to be symptomatic of this kind of interior design:

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And then I came across these - from the website of an "Entrepreneur, Furniture Designer, Artist, Website Designer, Writer, Adventurer" as he says of himself on his website: Glenn Keith Madden, born in South Carolina and living currently in Indonesia. His company's furniture is all hand carved from solid wood.

Would this bed fulfil your dreams?

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In addition you could add this throne to complement your imagination of pure luxury and royal sublimeness...


Or would this bed rather complement your lifestyle...?

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And how about this bed? It is called the "Avatar Bed"...

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Or would you prefer to sleep in the bed of the "Conquerer"? To be honest I did not imagine that you could buy a bed such as the one below and who would actually buy this? Amazing...

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Now to some more bedroom designs and beds of the "unusual" kind....

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What would you say to a Cosmovoide Bed for ridiculous $60,000? This bed has twin electric relaxation bed frames (whatever that means), rainbow colored LEDs, a telephone, and a DVD system with a TV at its foot:


Here is another futuristic bed that comes in vibrant red besides other colours: the Sphere bed from Karim Rashid for piffling $50,000. This Sphere bed has a 32 inch colored television, covered LED florescent canopy-top lights, a champagne holder, a mirror at the back, plus all the comforts that every bed offers. (from Better Homes):



The warning "do not show this to your kids" seems very reasonable to me because this fantasy coach bed is available for $47,000 only. It is made from wood and fibre glass and looks to have come straight out of a fairytale. This bed is every little princess’s dream. (from Better Homes)


And what do you say about one of the world's most expensive bed with a price that can reach over $210,000 which puts it right away into this category - available only for...?
"Furniture designer Abdolhay Parnian treats his furniture like works of art and it shows in the final product. It’s taken him two years to design this bed and I think you’ll agree that it was well worth the wait." (read more)


But there are more expensive options. F.e. the Jado Steel Style Gold Bed for $675,000!!! This bed is coated in 24 carat gold and features Swarovski crystals along the sideboard. This has to be the most expensive waterbed ever!

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Do you think this was it?? Be prepared to look at a bed that costs 1.8 Million US$. Yes, 1.8 Million Dollar.

It is probably the most futuristic bed you have ever seen, this magnetic floating bed. "Designed by architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars from the Netherlands, the 900 kilogram bed is kept afloat by powerful magnets. Just in case it tries to take off, the bed is tied by wires to the wall." (from Better Homes)


Ha - but this is still not the end of the list of superlatives. Here finally comes the most expensive bed in the world, a Baldacchino supreme for $6.3 million.
"At the price of $6.3 million this is the most expensive bed in the world. Created by none other than Stuart Hughes, the man who seems to want to make everything the ‘most expensive’. Hand carved from ash wood and chestnut wood, with the canopy’s edges in cherry wood, the 107 kg of 24 carat gold inlay work has added to the gob smacking price. The fabric is Italian silk and cotton; the headboard can be customised with diamond buttons (at an extra cost of course!). No wonder only two were made." (source)


Would this be your perception of a "beachhouse"?  Located near Stockholm this is in fact a property with a private beach.

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In the very same house you would find bedrooms such as this one:

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Here are some more examples of how the other part of the society sleeps:

GEORGE V Private Royal Suite
spaces design by interior designer STRAIGHTLINE Interiors

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Why I added this bedroom you may ask. But yes, you are looking at the bedroom of the most expensive 1-bedroom appartment in the world:
"Listed at a cool 1.8 billion yen ($21.8 million USD), the Sifter’s jaw dropped when the listing stated an apartment called The House, in the exclusive Minami-Azabu district of Tokyo (the most expensive neighbourhood in Tokyo), was a 4,434 square foot (411.932 sq m) 1-Bedroom apartment.
At a mind-boggling $4,920.75 per square foot, the Sifter challenges you to find a more expensive 1-bedroom apartment for sale..."(read more)
Apparently a 2 story penthouse in Monaco was sold for only 305 million $ by an Arab Sheikh. Also this bedroom looks amazingly decent in consideration of the price for the whole penthouse.

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Another bedroom from the very same appartment looks even more decent. So the "justification" for the incredible price of this penthouse may be the location rather than a precious interior...

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Of course there are a series of extravagant rooms and bedrooms which are populated by the vips of the film and music branch. It may be nothing new to hear about the preferred style of Mariah Carey which would do justice to any royal diva:


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To be continued at another time...
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Monday, April 23, 2012

SPECIAL SERIES: The Revival of Medieval-Renaissance Bedrooms in the Goth Scene (part 3)

We had a look into the Bedrooms of the Royals and we saw some examples of Ancient Beds and Bedrooms. Most of them were everything else than comfortable and cosy like today's. Hygiene was not known, simple people slept with their animals in the same room sometimes, caves served as bedrooms which can be seen practically allover the world. Mesa Verde in Northern America being one of the most famous certainly.

Now I have another intriguing subject regarding bedrooms: how medieval - renaissance bedrooms experienced a kind of revival in the Goth Scene. I have to admit that I am in no way linked to the Goth Scene and therefore you must forgive me if I get certain things wrong or misinterpret others. Please correct me if there are any errors. I am just fascinated by the opulence of medieval decoration and interior, the materials that are used, the deep colours not to speak of the elegance and the love for detail. Additionally I admire the sophisticated craftmanship that is involved in these interiors, in the furniture, in the textiles.

I do not want to analyze any sociopolitical dependencies and interferences between the various subcultures - I only want to point to some of the commonly known attributes that are accredited to the Goth subculture in the 80's, such as the dark decoration and interior design of  certain rooms which are used as a refuge. Mostly walls and ceilings were kept in black/dark colours and decorated with heavy dark textiles. Accessories such as crosses, dried flowers, heavy chandeliers and candleholders, skulls and horns of dead animals were meant to create the appropriate ambience. It is the elaboration and exclusiveness of the materials that were often used and that fascinate me most:  heavy brocades, silks and embroidered velvets in colours such as deep purple, dark reds, black and dark greens adorned with silver and golden threads. Personally I would refuse though to use anything that was part of a living animal slaughtered to be used for human amusement. There are other ways of presenting the animal in dark images.

In the late 90's though this kind of decoration was replaced by a more commercial  version and changed into a style reminiscent of the Victorian era, accompanied by the art of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. This is probably the reason why the market for heavy medieval or Renaissance style furniture has never died.

It is amazing how large the market actually still is for medieval furniture as replica as well as for originals. Only during my research on the Internet I realized that there is a large interest for extremely heavy bedroom interior and I wonder why. Maybe people are just fed up with all the modern stuff that often lacks imagination, passion and a whiff of mystery? Medieval decoration is undoubtedly impressive but certainly does not fit everywhere. You need large rooms for heavy furniture. You definitely make a strong statement with an interior such as shown in the following images:


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This is a more moderated way of decorating a Goth bedroom which I find quite intriguing:

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Another possibility is to simply use "Gothic" shading for your bedroom, moderate but still giving your room the very special aura of mystery which I could live with:

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Back to the heavy medieval furniture for a bedroom. On my way I found this quite impressive four poster bed that looks like a little chapel. The manufacturer says that the design was inspired from an old Gothic castle king's bed:

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As a "creator of ambience" and stage designer Renzo Mongiardino definitely fulfilled all phantasies of a theatrical sense. One of his creations would certainly make any Goth's heart "burst" into excitement:

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Another American icon designer with a sense for theatrics and drama was Tony Duquette. His house "Dawnridge" in Beverly Hills is full of examples which could fulfil any expectation for the unusual, theatrical design worth a king living within its walls:


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Let's visit the places where people actually still live with the medieval traditions at least design wise. And where would you find more places with Gothic traditions than in England and Scotland? F.e. Edinburgh castle and its neighbourhood can offer you what you might have dreamt of: sleeping in a Gothic bedroom. This would certainly be completely different from any hotel room you might have ever spent the night, adding even a tiny bit of a creepy feeling from a place where hundreds of so-called witches have been murdered:
"...the Witchery was established by James Thomson OBE, in a historic building at the gates of Edinburgh Castle. At the historic heart of Edinburgh's Old Town, the Witchery takes its name from the hundreds of women burned at the stake at the stake as witches on Castlehill during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is reputed that more witches were put to death on Castlehill during the reign of James VI than anywhere else in Scotland. The area around the Witchery by the Castle remains deep in history." (read more)




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You could also pay a visit to Llanthony Secunda Manor, 40 min. away from Cardiff in Wales. How would you feel to sleep in a bedroom such as this one:



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More opportunities to have a medieval hotel stay you will find in Amberly Castle in Sussex. Look at this wonderful bedroom:


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Many grand places in Europe which were blessed with medieval interior that has not been destroyed nor displaced by the various wars have been turned into museums due to the immense costs for renovation and maintenance. Here is an example of an early Renaissance palace in Florence - the Palazzo Davanzati. It is quite interesting to read about the history and welfare of this palace which is symptomatic for many places such as this one:

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To fulfil your own dreams of a Renaissance or medieval revival in your home you might find the following inspirational. 
Look at this fabulous Italian Renaissance bed that I found through Inessa Stewart's blog. Wouldn't this be the jewel of any Goth inspired bedroom?

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Here is another historical Renaissance bed that was used by Heni II, displayed in Chenonceau Castle (France.

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And if you still haven't had enough of medieval bedrooms you could read this interesting article about Beds through the Ages and how people lived/slept in the past.

Another interesting article about the various bedroom interior styles of the English Renaissance period and a short historical background can be found here. But this is by far not everything you can find. For now I leave it to your own discovery...


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Monday, March 12, 2012

SPECIAL SERIES: Bedrooms of the Royals (part 1)

This is the beginning of a new series about bedrooms. Please bear in mind that I am in no way a historian expert so potential errors and misinterpretations may occur and I would be very pleased if you could correct me. The purpose of this series is simply a peek through the keyhole into something that is normally the most intimate room of a home - at least in modern times - the bedroom.

It was so much fun to do this little research and I want to share with you what I have found. Maybe you will find the one or other idea to dive deeper into this subject and have your own joy in your discoveries.

I love to look at bedrooms because they reveal the most of a person I think. Bedrooms are the most private  rooms of a house. Here you normally show the state of your personality that is masked towards the foreign world. Do I exaggerate? Maybe a bit but only a little bit. Though this applies merely to bedrooms which are actually lived in not the ones which are staged for interior design photography.

A quick look into Wikipedia about the definition of a bedroom just for fun reveals the following:
"A bedroom is a private room where people usually sleep for the night or relax during the day. About one third of our lives are spent sleeping and most of the time we are asleep, we are sleeping in a bedroom.To be considered a bedroom the room needs to have a bed. Bedrooms can range from really simple to fairly complex. Other standard furnishings a typical bedroom usually has are, a closet, nightstand, desk, and dresser. Today in richer countries that have houses with multiple bedrooms, a bathroom may be connected to the bedroom. This did not start happening until the mid to late twentieth century."
Well - royal bedrooms may not be the best examples regarding privacy - they were everything else but private but I thought I would start this series with a kind of extreme after we are used to completely different environments today (depending on where we are).These bedrooms are also highly uncomfortable and embarrassing even in my opinion, cold and gloomy at the same time. You would never know who is watching you. I suppose you need to be born into such a lifestyle to feel at home although some of the royal bedrooms are kept surprisingly simple.

Fontainebleau - France
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 Royal-Het-Loo-Palace, Netherlands
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Herrenchiemsee - Germany
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Green Palace - Tehran
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Münchner Residenz - Germany


Buckingham Palace - Great Britain

Jaisalmer Palace - India

Versailles - France

Palace of Udaipur - India

City Palace of Jaipur - India
 Teremnoy Palace -Russia

Kremlin Palace - Russia

Btw it was more difficult  to find images of royal bedrooms from all over the world than I thought. European places have been turned into museums mostly due to the immense costs these places need for restauration and maintenance. The original furniture though is often missing (unfortunately) or has been removed due to make it easier for visitors to access the rooms without destroying the original interieur. Many Indian palaces have been transformed into hotels for the very same reasons. The interiors of south east Asian palaces such as Thai, Burmese and others are hardly accessible as they might be still in use by royal family members, due to religious beliefs or political circumstances.


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