Whether painted in turquoise, vapor, spa, cobalt, azure, or slate, blue rooms are poised to surge in popularity for 2009. Everywhere you look, interior stylings in blue are taking center stage, suggesting that this cool, collected tone will be foundational throughout 2009.
It would seem that blue is finally going its separate way from chocolate. Like a liberated woman after years stuck in a lifeless marriage, blue is reliving its past and exploring all the long-lost parts of itself. In doing so, blue is becoming the focal point in its environment, with support deriving from less forceful neutrals like black and white. Unlike the co-dependent vapor and chocolate arrangement, where dominance was shared among the two tones, now blue is taking over. Occasionally, we find that a pop of energizing color such as orange comes into play. For the most part, however, trendy spaces are allowing blue to be both foundation and backdrop, with black, white, glass, and mirrored surfaces serving mainly to offer it balance and support. In the most recent issues of Architectural Digest and Elle Decor, turquoise and cobalt in particular are turning up in the most refined of spaces.
In designer Gavin Macrae-Gibson's blue entryway of a Park Avenue apartment (Architectural Digest pages 120-121 shown here), a mythical cobalt centers the space in a moment of dramatic refinement. Macrae-Gibson balances the drama smartly by using black and white marble floors, clean white millwork, and fresh blue and white chinoiserie urns. In this unexpected yet stunning room, cobalt has been revived and freshened. It has likewise been afforded the privilege of backdrop to classical gilt carved wood pieces and other such treasures. Also incorporated into this space, we find a spectacular buddha watching over the comings and goings of the home. The buddha's presence at once intensifies the mythical and dreamy quality of the space and, paradoxically, brings things a bit more down to earth. It works nicely against the blue backdrop while expanding the room's symbolic possibilities to include karmic experiences and zen moments in time. The overall effect is one of delectable impermanence. In its implication of dreams, oceans, clouds, islands, and storms, the cobalt suggests both that life is full of ups and downs and that the owner of the home can handle it. With a strong sense of history underpinning things, a theatrical kind of imagination is left untethered, free to reign over the surface of things. As a result, we sense that the inhabitant of this space, whether guest or host, is accorded a privileged place in the order of things, as least for as long as he or she is there.
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More on blue rooms soon to come.
Photo credits: Elle Decor January Cover 2009, Elle Decor with design by Miles Redd.
Last three photos: Architectural Digest February 2009 Issue. Upper West Side Residence with Interior Architecture by Siris/Coombs and Interior Design by Jason Bell.
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