INTERIOR DESIGN FOR HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, BARS & CLUBS

Issue 71 | May - June 2017

Weslodge, Dubai – interiors by Navigate Design

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INSTALLATIONS

BESPOKE ART INSTALLATION UNVEILED AT THE GREAT NORTHERN HOTELArtist Debbie Smyth has created a striking new bespoke art installation on the staircase walls leading to Plum and Spilt Milk, a restaurant at The Great Northern Hotel in King’s Cross Station. ‘A Tying of Knots’ is a site-specific sewn piece that portrays a city in transition; referencing everything from Ordnance Survey maps from bygone years and heat maps charting interaction in the age of the internet to the unspoken conversations and bumping bodies of strangers along the local waterways and winding streets, plus the hustle of intersections and stations.

Debbie has used nails and embroidery pins connected by threads to portray real places as strings of memory, creating a cartography of string that is both real and imagined. As a fittingly poetic end to the project, the artist celebrated her own engagement whilst staying at The Great Northern Hotel – the transition to ‘tying the knot’ in her own life.

The installation is the latest success in the close relationship between ARTIQ and

the hotel’s owner-operator Jeremy Robson, involving the orchestration of spectacular and integrated art installations for the ground and first floor public spaces, as well as key stairwells, corridors and lift lobbies.

“Patrick McCrae of ARTIQ has an instinctive appreciation of how architecture, interior design and art must come together to play an influential part in generating a strong identity for a boutique hotel,” Jeremy comments.

“The Great Northern Hotel is a dignified

icon that sits at the centre of the cultural and transportational crossroads that is King’s Cross St Pancras.

The art curated by Patrick beautifully complements the grace and timeless elegance of the hotel, whilst giving a playful nod to its origin amongst other Victorian industrial London landmarks – and being ever so slightly provocative, and so relevant to today.”artiq.co

Images © Alastair Lever

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