HOUSE & GARDEN JAN/FEB 2020
House & Garden
History repeated
In Cape Town, designer John Jacob transforms a 1950s apartment into a quietly composed mid-century modern masterpiece.
‘’As with all my design projects, there needs to be a synergy between the interior architectural details and the actual architecture of the building,’ begins designer John Jacob on his recently completed project in a 1950s apartment building on Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard.
‘I wanted to somehow pay homage to this sense of history in the details, but reinterpret them in a modern way that was devoid of pastiche.’ His starting point would be a complete gutting of the apartment’s original interior walls, creating a more contemporary spatial composition. John further honed in on the verticality of joinery details, cupboards and curtains so that everything in the space runs from floor to ceiling, achieving not only a sense of volume but an open, overscaled luxury.
He’s quick to admit that one of his biggest bugbears when it comes to an apartment project: the windows. “They never run full length, and their proportions tend to be clunky,” he says. But as the adage goes, where there’s will – in this case for a seamless, chic interior – there’s a way; and John didn’t disappoint. ‘In terms of the window treatments, everything runs full floor to ceiling, even though the windows don’t,’ he says. “The illusion is that they are full height, even though they aren’t. This is hardly John’s only deft play of design to alter perception – or emotion. There is an unmissable drama grounded in chiaroscuro that welcomes anyone crossing the threshold into the apartment’s foyer and kitchen area.
‘The whole room has been cladded-wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling-in wire brushed, quarter cut veneer oak in black, so your initial arrival into the space is very dark, intense and enveloping,’ he says. ‘So the shock from the initial entry from the inside lobby into the space is already very bold. What that does is that it immediately resets your frame of mind and prepares you for the experience of the space’. The kitchen also has black shutters over the windows, leaving illumination to a custom mid-century-style light designed by John that hangs over the island, as well as LED lighting within the cupboards, effectively transforming them into lanterns. ‘It’s something that I do quite often as I try to avoid too many inconsequential decor items in a space,’ says John. ‘I like lighting details because they double up as both a sculptural and functional element.’
Moving into the living room, stark rectilinear lines give way to softer, curved pieces upholstered in a textured boucle of fabric – another subtle nod to the home’s history – while maintaining distinctively modern silhouettes. ‘Contrast in design is essential to creating depth and excitement,’ says John, ‘so even if it’s a pale space, the different aspects need to play off each other for it to have visual excitement.” That being said, John is quick to note the importance of cohesion, achieved here through the use of nuanced repetition. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the use of materiality, particularly the White Pearl marble that has not only been used in the flooring but was also incorporated into the living room coffee table and bathroom vanities.
“This creates a wonderful harmony and quietness, which I love,” he says. But leave it to John to have one last ace up his sleeve. Along the entire length of the apartment’s balcony, John installed custom aluminium planters spilling over the verdant. Philoendron xanadu. ‘Every single one of them is a sculpture in its own right, the leaves have a curvilinear shape which plays off the furniture and lighting in the space,’ he says. ‘So whenever you look out you’re looking at a green line, a pop of natural colour that is intensified by the monochrome interiors. In this way, the planting has really become the hero’. Well played, John, well played.
Read more John Jacob Interiors Magazine features here…