Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #360963 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
Mlinaric is considered to be one of the top British decorators of the second half of the twentieth century. He has clients ranging from Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton to Lord Rothschild. He's done mod and hip, shabby traditional and clean contemporary. And Mlinaric seems as comfortable redecorating the great properties of the national Trust as he does designing the interior of a London Flat. With page after page of photos of exquisite interiors, this book just might have you too wondering why you're not familiar with this talented man. ...after reading this book, you will be glad to make the acquaintance of this remarkable designer. -- thepeakofchic.com

I wish this book wasn't so heavy. It is full of such good things that I wanted to carry it around so that at every spare moment I could have another wallow in David Mlinaric's beautiful world. --Spectator

Mlinaric on Decorating is the first survey of the influential British designer's distinguised career, examines his classic taste in interiors for such longtime friends as Lord Rothschild and Mick Jagger--the latter's Chateau la Fourchette, though not identified as the rocker's home, can be seen on pages 72-77 --Elle Decor

Mlinaric's innate skill has served him well over the course of his 50-year career, and one that has resulted in some of the most successful restorations of great English interiors. Many of his projects are on view in the new book Mlinaric has written with Mirabel Celil. Prefaced with fragments of biography and full of evocative photographs, the retrospective chronicles Mlinaric's numerous achievements, most notably a nearly 30-year collaboration with Lord Jacob Rothschild who commissioned more than a decade's worth of work on Waddesdon, his palatial, French style manor, and entrusted Mlinaric with the salvation of Spencer House, one of the few remaining aristocratic London Mansions. In addition, Mlinaric was responsible for the masterly rejuvenation of the royal Opera House, as well as other venerable London institutions. Recording the process in riveting details the book also covers Mlinaric's "mending," as he calls it, of his own country homes and includes chapters on private commissions ranging from small urban apartments to atmospheric houses in Corfu, Greece; Mustique; France; and Ireland. --W

Review
David Mlinaric's contribution to interior design in the late 20th century is considerable. Whether they are classic or contemporary schemes, his projects are equally accomplished and there are many lessons to be learned from browsing through these pages.

About the Author
Mirabel Cecil has written for The Times, started a design page for Country Life and was one of the first contributors to The World of Interiors, for which she has written continuously since. She is also the author of a several biographies. The practice David Mlinaric started forty-five years ago in London now has thriving offices in Paris and New York. He has designed spaces in buildings the world over, among them London's National Gallery, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Spencer House, the Primary Galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Bath Assembly Rooms; embassies in Washington, Paris and Brussels; as well as houses for the Rothschild family, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, and myriad other private clients.

Customer Reviews

Fabulous
I think I own all or most of them and can say that this is one of the best retrospectives of any on the market. And especially noteworthy because Mlinaric's name isnt a commonly heard one. Great text and photographs. I highly recommend it.

one of Britain's top interior decorators
Thirteen illustrated chapters exhibit Mlinaric's "new and refreshing eclectic approach" he brings to any interior decoration job. He rose to prominence in the 1960's and 1970's English decorating scene for his association with the group of leading decorators; and also for work he did for Mick Jagger and other prominent cultural figures of the time. The standards and flair of Mlinaric's eclecticism, however, are such that he was not confined to this period. In the 1980s and '90s, he worked on the much-publicized and much-praised restoration of Spencer House in London for Lord Rothschild. Besides being linked with major cultural figures, Mlinaric also received commissions for work for major public institutions. Among these were the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Gallery in London.

Mlinaric's reputation and his eclectic style led to work outside of England as well. He did interior decorating on projects in Italy, Corfu, France, Ireland, and also Texas and New York. The sites of his work range from city to country to water side to rural; the projects, from apartments and individual rooms to sections and private and public areas of manors. This variety of work is displayed in the thirteen chapters on individual projects and in a few cases similar type of project throughout Europe and a couple of spots in the U.S. Several photographs of different sizes from wide angle for entire rooms to close-ups for details of particular objects or groupings capture the accomplishment of the interior design. Mlinaric decorates a room as its architect might imagine it to be decorated ideally. Spacing, colors, shapes, central utilitarian objects such as sofas or beds, and furnishings such as lamps, ceramics, or bronzes make each room unique, inviting, and habitable. Mlinaric seamlessly and singularly bridges the usual, conventional divide between private and public. The objects of his designs--whether chosen by him or givens as with museum pieces--attract, and satisfy, one intellectually and sensually; while their placement (in spots in rooms of homes) or presentation (in museums) gives off an aura of intimacy and ease. This bridging of private and public is accomplished by one's conscious or unconscious involvement with the objects. In museums, this can be paintings, sculptures, or objects d'art; in private homes, often these combined with finely-bound books, ornately-framed mirrors, simply-shaped lamp shades, and combinations of formal-looking and generously-padded furniture.

Curiosity about how Mlinaric acquired his knowledge and vision is answered in the first chapter. Born in 1939, Mlinaric attended London's Bartlett School of Architecture; which at the time followed a historical approach to the study of architecture. This traditional approach included subjects such as "sciagraphy," the science of how shadows are cast and in so doing affect architecture. Travel to his father's birthplace of Yugoslavia and to Italy and France complemented his sound, traditional learning. In Paris, by chance he came upon the shop of the legendary decorator Madeleine Castaing. Its collection of mixed objects and materials made a lasting impression on him. Such are some origins of Mlinaric's outstanding design sense which is both uncompromising over decades and adaptable to the nature of each particular project. His characteristic eclecticism has no relationship to collage, pastiche, or kitsch. It is a reflection of classical education, wide-ranging experience and interests, and intuitions of space. He absorbed Madeleine Castaing's remark about designing rooms as poets write poems.