Hasta La Ideas

Design studio Tutto Bene looked to surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design when creating the interior for this eyewear store in Islington, north London.

Set in the Angel area, the 60-square-metre store belongs to eyewear brand Cubitts and features an interior concept conceived by Tutto Bene based on the architecture of the space itself.

“It’s a long, slim room with an atelier atmosphere due to the strong contrasts of light and shadow,” the studio’s co-founder Oskar Kohnen told Dezeen.

“The atelier feeling immediately evoked a sense of being at an artist’s loft, this feeling of residential elements mixed with workshop-like rawness is what we wanted to embrace.”

To underline this feeling, the studio added decorative pieces that nod to different art movements throughout the space.

“The individual elements of the store design reference surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design from the 1940s and 50s through play on perspective, rational spatial composition and painterly use of colour,” Kohnen said.

A skylight lets plenty of light into the Cubitts shop, which Tutto Bene reflected via glass details placed inside the store.

“We didn’t want to over-complicate the dynamic of the space,” the studio’s co-founder Felizia Berchtold told Dezeen.

“Instead we placed monolithic elements within it that offer points of interest and grounding,” she added.

“Each element speaks a clear material language. There are hues of greens and yellow, the transparency of the nile glass, as well as areas of black that balance the space’s abundance of natural light.”

The slim, rectangular store features glass shelves set against a backdrop of sage-green silk from fabric house Holland & Sherry along the entire right-hand wall, in another reference to art and artworks.

“The long shelf stretching the entire length of the space represents an artist’s easel, as well as exhibition tableaus,” Berchtold explained.

“The natural slubs and beautiful colour variation that the silk brings provide a reverent backdrop for the frames displayed on it, whilst being a quiet artwork in itself.”

Along the left-hand side, Tutto Bene placed black storage and display volumes, as well as Cubitts’ eye-examination room.

Kohnen and Berchtold designed many of the furniture pieces personally for the interior, among them an undulating orange seat.

“Most elements are bespoke pieces we designed, including the Uovo chaise,” Berchtold said.

“Then there’s some vintage treasures such as the 1960s glass and chrome chandelier and a group of FontanaArte prism-like pieces that complement and contextualise our fixture designs,  as well as photographic works by Lee Miller, casting the store through her surrealist lens.”

Tutto Bene has previously designed the interior of Cubitts’ first New York store as well as the steel-and-mirror Nightingale restaurant in London’s Mayfair.

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