Dark Nostalgia Hardcover - 2009

From: Introduction

When the Royalton Hotel renovation was unveiled in New York in the fall of 2007, it marked the end of an era. It was also a public marker of the beginnings of another, one that had been simmering. Gone were Philippe Starck's playful-philosophical chairs. Gone were the round shapes and cartoonish forms, relics of a design time that thrived on words like “blobby,” “organic,” and “computer.” Gone were the jokes, the puns, the inside references.

There, now, was a hand-forged fireplace grate, a wrapped metal screen, fur. There, at this Manhattan media hotspot, were spun rope nets, polished wood banquettes, deep heavy colors. The architects of the renovation, Roman and Williams, had so thoroughly removed Starck, had so completely stamped their own gritty and dark nostalgia onto the place, that critics didn't know what to do. Some mourned the loss of an icon. Others complained about the materials. Mostly, they didn't know what to say.

As it turns out, we weren't losing an icon. We were being offered a new one. While the Royalton's designers, Roman and Williams, were working, other establishments with a similar sensibility were cropping up as well. Allen & Delancey, for example, a brick-walled, book-lined, velvet-curtained restaurant, opened on New York's Lower East Side and served dishes like marrow bones, boiled beef, and scallops with cream. In Paris, a seventeenth-century building was transformed with slick all-black walls, and in San Francisco, a former speakeasy reintroduced the use of the password for entry.

The projects that follow show that we have become nostalgic for a time that never existed. They demonstrate, through this re-creation of history's deep colors, polished woods, velvets, furs, leather, and burnished metals, that we would rather live by creating our present through an imagination of our past. We love these dark materials for their ability to evoke emotions and moods, for their warmth and acceptance of the somber sides of life. We are re-creating our own history and embracing the darkness that comes with it.

"Citizens know that life in any city is all about relationships, not only between people, but also between people and places. Eva Hagberg offers a surprisingly fresh and original insight into architecture by collecting a peculiar group of interiors that, no matter how recently established, are able to zoom straight into people's memory and create a sense of belonging and familiarity because they feel like they have always been there—for you."
—Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art

 
"Eva Hagberg has found a way to look at interiors with an analysis that combines psychology, style, fashion, architecture, and art. Instead of merely celebrating the stylishness of the spaces, she gives us an insight into why we want to be in them, and how the imagined and constructed past they contain is really about our present needs. This is as much a book about desire as it is about design."
—Roy McMakin, Artist

"A new book extolling the design trend of the past several years—a recreated, embellished vintage look incorporating brick, iron, wood, velvet, and fur—at last christens a genre of interior design seen from New York to Paris."
—Kelsey Keith, Fast Company

"Hagberg’s command of language and her appreciation of the aesthetics she’s surveying make the book an enjoyable read."
—Roaming by Design

Eva Hagberg is a writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Architect, the Architect's Newspaper, Architectural Record, Art+Auction, Interior Design, Metropolis, the New York Times, Surface, Wallpaper*, Wired, and elsewhere.