VT 14.5.13

designtriciahuntley
courtesyathoughtfuleyeblog


And yet, every continent, country, and capital, is awash with bland beige, unrelieved by a lot of lifeless leather, a bit of black and a throw.  And that's not just the new breed of "modern" hotels, but apartments and homes as well, for people seem to want their living spaces to look exactly like the hotel, or spa, or friend's house they just left.  This dullness of "taste" is surely a watered-down version of those coolly elegant rooms that were so eye-catching decades ago.  Think of the Mercer Hotel-ification of style:  those dark brown wenge-wood bookcases are now the sine qua non of ubiquitous, bland modernity.  Even an icon of great taste, like Cy Twombly's house in Rome, has been the object of much dull, middle-of-the-road copycatting.  Nowadays, the tedious sameness of so much modern architecture enhanced by a dash of classicism can only make such taste insipid.


Nicky Haslam, The Question of Taste
(T), The New York Times