Dark Nostalgia

As the late twentieth-century fascination with rounded shapes, organic influences, and plastics fades, interior designers are increasingly drawn to deep colors, polished woods, velvets, furs, leather, dark metals, and brick that have a nostalgic quality—materials used liberally in centuries gone by. Efforts to shape a more authentic, less austere present by creating an idealized version of the past have begun to appear in commercial and residential design throughout the country and abroad. Dark Nostalgia presents twenty-six projects that exemplify the smooth incorporation of evocative historic detail into current interiors. Public spaces, including New York’s famous Royalton Hotel lobby renovation, the Clift Hotel bar in San Francisco, and Alain Ducasse’s newest restaurant, Adour, as well as private residences and smaller, intimate restaurants and clubs by cutting-edge designers, including AvroKO, David Rockwell, Roman & Williams, Julian Schnabel, Philippe Starck, and Adam Tihany, demonstrate the many successful ways this trend towards a dark nostalgia has been incorporated in recent designs.

About the Author :
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.

Review :
"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