Furnished Rooms at Darmstadt and Mannheim

In looking back on the record of past work, and in recalling the flavour, not always entirely delicious, of ten or fifteen years ago, one is chiefly struck by the strange irony of fate which has made one’s employment consist of building houses for other people to furnish, or furnishing houses which other people have built. In no single case in the houses illustrated by photographs am I responsible for the furniture, and the sympathetic reader will perhaps realise this in glancing at some of these illustrations. In the two examples now given of Continental work, it has been my task to decorate and furnish only.

In work of this kind, which depends so essentially for its effect on colour schemes, photographs are somewhat inadequate.

In the sitting-room at Darmstadt the panelling is ivory-white, and above this the wall is orange. The central electric-light fittings, designed by Mr. Ashbee, are grey pewter, and the furniture is chiefly in tones of green and blue. And this arrangement of white, orange, grey, green and blue is supplemented by touches of brilliant pink in the flowers.

In the dining-room a more sober scheme prevails, the wall above the panelling being covered with embossed leather.

In the music-room at Mannheim the panelling is again white, and on the white ground of frieze and ceiling are set trees and wreaths of mountain ash and rose modelled in plaster, and painted their proper colours with flights of silver birds.

The fireplace presents a space of white marble with a central rosette of pink-toned “midnight sun” marble surrounded by rays of black. The grate is repoussee brass, and the slender shafts of the columns are crowned by capitals, where white lilies bloom between pale green leaves. The electric-light fittings are of armour-bright iron, with touches of green enamel.

The principal piece of furniture is the large music cabinet, specially designed for the use of a composer. It is of oak, inlaid with ebony, pewter and pearl.

The special piano for this room has not yet been executed. The little inlaid semicircular chairs which appear in this room have recently been much exploited by furnishing firms.

The double windows used in German houses gave an opportunity for the use of stained glass, designed to not unduly obstruct the light. The flowers are in shades of pink with grey-green leaves. The boudoir, which opens into this music room, follows much the same scheme of colour.

The corner fireplace is lined with turquoise-blue tiles, and the furniture of oak is inlaid with ebony, ivory and pearl.

Other rooms in Germany, not illustrated here, which have been decorated and furnished, consist of exhibition rooms, designed for firms in Berlin and Dresden. It appears to be a growing custom with the principal furniture firms in Germany to invite representative architects to contribute to such periodical exhibitions, and in these it has been Mr. Mackintosh and myself who have represented the British section. In thus recognising the claims of the individual artist in this field of design these German firms seem to set an example which might well be followed in this country, where, so far, furniture is still considered a commercial product merely, and its design as hardly worthy of serious study as an art.

The examples of furniture illustrated are selected from designs made for Mr. J. P. White of Bedford, and published in a book of furniture which may be obtained from him. The rose bedstead and dressing-table are part of a suite designed for a bedroom in which the rose prevails. The walls and ceiling are decorated with a trellis of roses. Gleams of pale blue sky show between the flowers, birds cling and flutter amidst the branches.

The daffodil dresser is part of a room where cool fresh spaces of green and grey are relieved by pale yellow blossoms.

Each piece of furniture is a thing to be considered not entirely alone, but qualities depend in every case on the proper relation to a complete scheme when this furniture finds itself happily at home in a little world of colour and form.