HOSPITALITY DESIGN INSIGHTS

Editorial features from the studio on culture, influences, craft, hospitality and destinations.

Shimenawa rope with straw tassels and white paper streamers at a Japanese shrine

Culture

What Is a Shimenawa? The Sacred Meaning Behind Japan's Shinto Ropes

Shimenawa are sacred Shinto ropes of straw and paper shide that mark pure space, from the Amaterasu cave myth to Izumo Taisha and the yokozuna's rope.

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Culture

Influences

Who Was Aubrey Beardsley? Japanese Influence and Decadent Art in Victorian London

Aubrey Beardsley (1872 to 1898): his Brighton start, Japanese print influence, Salome, The Yellow Book and the Decadent art of 1890s London.

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Influences

Who Was Aubrey Beardsley? Japanese Influence and Decadent Art in Victorian London

Aubrey Beardsley (1872 to 1898): his Brighton start, Japanese print influence, Salome, The Yellow Book and the Decadent art of 1890s London.

Curved iron and glass Palm House behind formal flower beds

Influences

The Victorian Glasshouse: How Iron and Glass Brought the Tropics Indoors

The Victorian glasshouse, from orangeries and the Wardian case to Chatsworth, Kew's Palm House and Temperate House, and Singapore's cooled conservatories.

Tea house among dense trees and clipped hedges across a still garden pond

Influences

The Japanese Tea House: Chashitsu, Sen no Rikyu and the Nijiriguchi

The Japanese tea house, or chashitsu, from Murata Juko's four-and-a-half-mat room to Sen no Rikyu's two-mat Taian, its nijiriguchi and roji path.

Peacock Room with gilded shelving, blue and white porcelain and a painting above fireplace

Influences

The Aesthetic Movement: Art for Art's Sake in the Victorian Interior

The Aesthetic Movement explained: Gautier and Pater, the Grosvenor Gallery, Godwin's furniture, Liberty & Co, blue-and-white china and Wilde's 1882 tour.

Stone farmhouse on a rounded hill ringed by cypresses above green fields

Influences

The Tuscan Farmhouse: Casa Colonica, Mezzadria and Cucina Povera

How the Tuscan farmhouse, or casa colonica, worked under mezzadria sharecropping, from the Val d'Orcia landscape to ribollita and Chianti.

Whitewashed houses of Grazalema spread across a hillside below rocky mountains

Influences

Painted White Brick: Limewash, Whitewash and the White-Walled Interior

Limewash and whitewash history, from Andalusia's white towns and lime kilns to conservation advice on painting old brick and New York's 1904 subway tile.

Roman theatre cut into a hillside in Amman, seen from above among city buildings

Influences

The Roman Theatre of Amman: Philadelphia and the Architecture of the Roman Theatre

The Roman Theatre of Amman, built in 2nd-century Philadelphia under Antoninus Pius, read through Vitruvius and compared with Jerash and Bosra.

Craft

Kintsugi: The Japanese Art of Repairing Broken Pottery With Gold

What is kintsugi? How the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with urushi lacquer and gold is done, where it came from and its link to tea.

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Craft

Kintsugi: The Japanese Art of Repairing Broken Pottery With Gold

What is kintsugi? How the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with urushi lacquer and gold is done, where it came from and its link to tea.

Flax field with small blue flowers under a cloudy sky

Craft

How Linen Is Made: Flax, Retting and Weaving from Ancient Egypt to Belfast

How linen is made from flax, from 30,000-year-old fibres in Georgia and Egyptian royal linen to Flemish retting, Belfast mills and Europe's flax belt.

Gilded wrought iron grille with scrolling foliage and small figures in roundels

Craft

Spanish Wrought Iron: Rejería, Catalan Forges and the Cathedral Rejas of Spain

Spanish wrought iron explained: the Catalan forge, the rejeros and the cathedral rejas of Seville, Granada and Valladolid, through to Gaudí's Casa Vicens.

Hillside of pale stone buildings packed across Amman under a cloudy sky

Craft

Amman Limestone: The Stone That Built Jordan's White City

Amman limestone explained: the Cretaceous and Eocene stone quarried from Ma'an to Ajlun, its tubzeh and musamsam finishes and the rules behind its façades.

Woodblock print of a crowded Edo street lined with kabuki theatres at dawn

Craft

Yakusha-e: Kabuki Actor Prints and the Art of the Theatre Poster

Yakusha-e kabuki actor prints, from Torii school theatre signboards and Edo playbills to Sharaku, Kunisada, Osaka kamigata-e and the 20th-century poster.

Black and white timber-framed manor house with jettied gables and decorative panels

Craft

Post-and-Beam Framing: How Timber Frame Buildings Are Built

Post-and-beam framing explained: medieval crucks and box frames, half-timbering, Horyu-ji, New England houses, balloon framing and mass timber.

Black and white photo of a girl holding two jars before shelves of preserves

Craft

The Mason Jar: How John Landis Mason's 1858 Patent Changed Home Preserving

Mason jar history, from Nicolas Appert and John Landis Mason's 1858 patent to Ball, Kerr, USDA canning guidance and the jar's use as a drinking glass.

Chef plating small omakase dishes on a timber counter

Hospitality

Omakase Dining: What It Means and Where Japan's Chef's Choice Tradition Began

Omakase dining explained: what the word means, how it grew from Edo's sushi stalls, how a sushi omakase works, its etiquette, prices and reservations.

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Hospitality

Omakase Dining: What It Means and Where Japan's Chef's Choice Tradition Began

Omakase dining explained: what the word means, how it grew from Edo's sushi stalls, how a sushi omakase works, its etiquette, prices and reservations.

Cook working at a griddle behind a long diner counter lined with menus

Hospitality

The Open Kitchen: How Restaurants Put Cooking on Show, from Diners to Spago

The open kitchen, from Escoffier's hidden Savoy brigade and the diner counter to Spago in 1982, plus how designers plan it and what research shows.

Lit chalk cellar tunnel lined with crates and stacks of champagne bottles

Hospitality

Wine Walls: How Restaurants Store and Display Wine, from Cellars to Glass Towers

How restaurant wine walls store and display wine, from storage temperature and light to Champagne's chalk cellars, Bordeaux chais and Aureole's wine tower.

Art Deco tower of 30 Rockefeller Plaza rising at the end of a Manhattan plaza

Hospitality

Sky Bars: A History of the Rooftop Bar from New York Roof Gardens to Asia

A history of the sky bar, from New York's 1890s roof gardens and the 1934 Rainbow Room to revolving restaurants and Asia's hotel sky bars.

Illustration of an ornate hotel foyer filled with elegantly dressed diners

Hospitality

The history of the hotel bar, from the Savoy’s American Bar to Raffles

The history of the hotel bar, from New York’s Waldorf and the Savoy’s American Bar to the Raffles Long Bar, the King Cole Bar and Bemelmans Bar.

Green water of the Great Bath surrounded by colonnaded terraces with Bath Abbey behind

Hospitality

Wellness Tourism: From Europe's Spa Towns to the Modern Hotel Spa

Wellness tourism traced from Roman Bath and the Great Spa Towns of Europe to Japan's onsen, Rancho La Puerta and the modern hotel spa.

Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong hotel tower on Chater Road among Central office buildings

Hospitality

Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong History: The Mandarin of 1963 and Its Hotel Group

Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong history, from The Mandarin's 1963 opening on Connaught Road to the Oriental Bangkok stake and the 2006 reopening.

Traditional thatched-roof village in a forested mountain valley in Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Destinations

Toyama and the Craft Traditions Behind Japan's Shimenawa Ropes

Exploring how Toyama's fishing villages, rice-growing traditions and local craftsmanship helped shape one of Japan's most enduring shimenawa-making regions.

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Destinations