Hyde Park Corner September Issue

TEXT BY VANESSA MCCULLOCH

Interior Architect John Jacob Zwiegelaar talks luxury, finding balance and a life in pursuit of the perfect space

A fine balance

Sitting in his studio, John Jacob Zwiegelaar of John Jacob Interiors is talking to me about synergy.

“You can spend millions putting things inside your house but it’s a waste if the right architectural proportions aren’t there.”

There are decorators who swoop in and add a layer of luxury with hand-picked art and tastefully selected furniture. And if that’s what you’re looking for, John probably isn’t the person to call.

He certainly has an eye that’s finely attuned to exquisite detail. Images of previous projects are a visual feast; delicate hand-picked silk wall panels in a Constantia bathroom, the statement of a jade-hued sofa offset by a charcoal wall in a city apartment. Art, sculpture, furniture and antiques are gathered from around the world.

But as an interior architect, John goes deeper than surface aesthetics. As beautiful as it all is, John points out that it’s ‘just stuff’ if it’s working in isolation.

In the luxurious world created by John, the structure of your space is king – and everything bows down before it.

“Truly spectacular things are achieved when the architecture and decoration comes together. That’s when the magic happens.”

Of his creative process, John says the initial idea usually takes him about 15 minutes.

“You walk around and you become hypersensitive. You can feel if the concrete feels too hard or if it’s actually gentle. All of us can do that. We initially all feel a space rather than seeing it with our eyes.”

He explains that everyone can feel a wall is too high by not even seeing it, but sensing it behind you. This is how he roots out what problem areas to tackle first.

He throws out words like ‘harmony’ and ‘balance’ and you can feel that he’s not just talking the talk. The before and after pictures of his projects are testament to this; the transformation of mediocre into mesmerising is truly astonishing.

The bigger picture has to be achieved first, he says, the mood conveyed at your gate or front door; the view onto your landscaped garden, the right proportions of the building.

He started his award-winning studio in 2005, but for John it wasn’t always about interiors. His creative talent nearly took him down a different path – and into the kitchen.

After school he went to the well-known Irish culinary school Ballymaloe, but he realised that sweating it out in the kitchen wasn’t where he wanted to be. A BCom at UCT followed, then hotel school.

“I was still thinking I’d be involved in restaurants and hotels, but the bigger picture.”

Then something clicked. He realised that it was the concept that was talking to him so he signed up for Design Time School of Interior Design.

“Since then I’ve been passionate about the alchemy of environments and making them as incredible as I can,” he says.

Every project teaches him something new; and he is thrilled when his clients have a desire to learn with him.

“All our work is a collaboration; it’s never just me. That’s why they’re all so different.”

The thread through it all is luxury – from a revamp of historic wine farm Vergelegen, to a German rock star’s beach house (“The interior has a certain nightclub feel to it”), to the Uber chic design of Luminance.

I ask him if he can remember that first job that gave him that buzz, the tingling-along-your-neck kind of feeling when you know that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. He still gets that at the end of every project, he says.

“To really get to a place where you can create a space that looks and feels amazing, to get that perfect equilibrium … It’s a life-long endeavour and passion that I’m never going to get tired of pursuing. Here’s to a life’s work of beautiful spaces.

Read more John Jacob Interiors Magazine features here…