DESIGNING FOR ART

ASK THE EXPERT

By Thomas Burger

Good Art & Good Architecture go hand in hand and have been recognized as an important pairing throughout history. Four areas of critical importance when designing for Art are Scale, Color, Texture and Placement.

PLACEMENT

“Art is and should be very personal but its placement should not be.”

I’m an avid collector of art and antiques from 2nd century BC stone carvings to 16th century Flemish tapestries, from Renaissance original oils to 21 century Basquiat. My furniture is a mix of 15th- 17th century tables and chairs with contemporary sleek upholstery. Moreover, I’m not afraid of color! Imagine the chaos this creates when mixing all these styles, centuries, colors and cultures together. That’s why PLACEMENT is everything! Placement of art should enhance the architure of your home, work with it, help balance it and help further define it. “Art placement is an Art”

SCALE

When designing a home with high ceilings – accentuate the height by placing long vertical art on narrow walls and long horizontal art on long walls. Scale accessories appropriate to the home. If your existing art and accessories are small in scale consider grouping in a way that enlarges the overall look. Often I see homeowners scale their furniture to compensate for high ceilings and large scaled rooms which is definitely the wrong approach. I can’t emphasize that enough!

TEXTURE

The addition of textures to walls in art-form can include textiles, wall sculptures of wood, metals, resin, acrylic, tiles, carvings and more. Be mindful to place heavy textures in a way that does not “feel” encroaching or out of balance.

COLOR

When selecting materials for the architecture of your home and color palettes for such as well as furnishings, know what your direction in art is going to be so that both your art and your home look good together. If both your art and your architectural materials are the same intensity of color and texture then your home will feel either too overpowering or too blasé.

Plan for your completed “look” before you begin your journey of design! A well designed home should be both exciting and calming at the same time which is a very delicate balance. The Japanese have a perfect word to describe such a paradox “ZEN” which means “dynamic stillness”