A house by the Polish seaside, the interior of which is inspired by the so-called Middle Kingdom, a period that is considered to be the golden age of Egypt, was created by Karolina Rochman, who is the author of the interior.
Time, change – real or illusory, the uniqueness of life’s repetitive processes and day-to-day repetition, the conflict-free co-presence of eternity and mortality – these are the leitmotifs of the entire interior and its individual surfaces. Motivated by these principles, the design of space-time itself becomes a metaphor for time.
The time imbued in this thoroughly stylised piece of reality, the space of the house, is characterised by a specific rhythm and a specific way of passing. It is a combination of the cyclical macro-time of nature and the micro-time of individually experienced existence or subjectively experienced everyday life.
Time touches the space from the very beginning, with the change of its use as a result of the adaptation of a commercial space to residential accommodation. In one hundred and thirty square metres, it has been possible to accommodate three bedrooms, two bathrooms – one of which accompanies the master bedroom with a separate dressing room and the other is adjacent to the laundry room, a kitchen connected to the dining room and open to the living room, a vestibule at the threshold of the flat and a hall in its depth. The materials used in the construction of the interior are time-honoured – the natural and painted oak wood of the floors and furniture are juxtaposed with sophisticated wall fuses, imported to Poland from France in a dizzying number of no fewer than 1,500 glassy-water squares.
The golden age of Egypt brought into the Polish interior
In a glass interior, everything seems to flow. The basic principle guiding the domestic microcosm – its arché – is water, which is constantly changing in terms of its state of aggregation and form. Water takes on the shape of the vessel in which it is contained, and thus of the interior and each separate space within it. Here, however, the boundaries are blurred and the edges indistinct. The surface is dominated by curves and roundness. The transitions are smooth and gentle, as can already be seen in the entrance area of the flat, which accustoms visitors to the interior, which is behind a closed door but which shines invitingly through a wall of fused glass.
The medium-sized kingdom has stable glass structures and is reflected in mirrors made of delicate glass. Functionality turns to everyday life, which poses problems that require innovative ideas and practical solutions. The glass house situated by the Baltic Sea seems like a dream come true from Przedwiośnie. The protagonist of Żeromski’s novel dreams of houses made of glass produced in a glassworks powered by the power of sea water. They were to be true works of applied art. The walls of glass were intended to be striking and effective. They shone in all the colours of the rainbow. They offered respite in the summer, when cold water flowed through them, and warmed in the winter, when hot liquid filled them.
Aesthetically, the Middle Kingdom harks back to the golden age of Egypt, to funerary beliefs, the time-honoured ceremonies and rituals of passing into eternal rest. The ancient Egyptian paradise – the Fields of the Ravine – is an island area surrounded by water with fields of Osiris, the god of death and reborn life. There are two roads to the world of the dead, a sea road and a land road, described and illustrated in the Book of the Two Roads. The division of the Book’s composition into the river and its two banks, where the blessed and the damned resided, was reflected in the atmosphere and interior design. The illuminated and shining surfaces communicate without clashing with the shadowy and gloomy rooms. Darkness does not sound ominous, it is even cosy and safe. On the other hand, brightness, full of optical illusions, is both disturbing and creative.
Middle Kingdom style bedroom
Bedroom, decorated with wallpaper stylised with vignettes and tomb reliefs showing scenes from the afterlife. The dressing room, illuminated by warm light, as if gathering the things needed to survive in the hereafter. Luxafers on the bathroom walls are shaped like eyes painted on wooden or stone boxes, allowing the deceased to gaze upon the world of the living. Glass blocks and mirror decorations look like mirrors placed in coffins, symbolising the Sun God and reflecting earthly life.
Accessories in old gold are also a luxurious relic of the Egyptian past. The richest sarcophagi were decorated with gold foil. Tutankhamun’s inner sarcophagus was made entirely of gold.
Life is about movement and movement is its essence. The interconnected surfaces of daily use flow like a river that begins its course in the dining room and finds its outlet in the living room. Its waters spill over the kitchen surface and rise to the hills of the chairs and the heights of the table, which, with its rectangular shape stretching the entire length of the dining room, itself resembles a gouged riverbed.
Movement is the origin of everything and also everything is in motion. The light filtered through the fused glass flickers on the living room floor, the glass walls flow from the ceilings like waterfalls, and the golden lamps in the dining room dance in the wind like light curtains of atomised metal. Nothing stands still, everything flows. It is impossible to immerse oneself twice in the same river and the same interior, because new waters have already flowed in and new impressions are still coming in.
Upstream, the water flows swiftly. In the eatery as a multifunctional and multi-purpose space, time passes in a swift current of daily events. The time-space – full of sights, touches, sounds, smells and tastes – becomes dense with many different sensory experiences. The emerald-coloured chairs and especially the bleu Majorelle table refer back to the garden and villa complex in Marrakech, which Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé renovated and opened to the public.
In the leisure area, the river slows down its course. Flowing unhurriedly, the water washes up the banks of the commode, which, covered in black war paint and equipped with two sword-lamps, offers a clear resistance to the element. Pushed into a corner, the coffee table holds solidly, although traces of erosion seem to shine on its micro-rough surface. The water has carried honey-coloured sand and left a brown residue on the sofa, which in its earthy colours and sky-high size looks like a welcoming island, temporarily only uninhabited.
In the living room, surrounded by glassy windows and luxe glass, water seems to spill all over the place. A small obstacle is a piece of land jutting out into the rolling sea. This is the protrusion of the bedroom, whose interior shines through the glass walls. The presence of the bedroom in the living room can be completely discreet. The light shining through the glass façade makes it a shimmering wall decoration. But like any meander formed by a river, the bedroom can cut itself off from the living-room matrix, separating itself from entrancing glances with curtains that, at the request of the household, drop heavy eyelids over the shimmering luxe glass.
The flat’s over-lit interior is like a river basin encompassing the basin of the dining room connected to the living room, along with a tributary in the form of a hallway that branches off into further branches – a guest bedroom and two bathrooms. Through one of these, you can swim to the second bedroom, although actually – from the point of view of the householder – the primary and main bedroom. She herself is like an old river with her own tributaries. In addition to the bathroom, the surface water of the dressing room flows into it.
The area, which is open to the outside, allows the occupants to enjoy the varied light and moods of the surroundings as the day progresses and the seasons change. Such a time-space will happily be populated by free spirits, highly sensitive observers and variable-light users sensitive to changes in surroundings and moods.
source: Karolina Rochman / http://karolinarochman.design/
photos: Moodauthors / https://moodauthors.com/
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