Midcentury Dialogue

Interior Architecture and Design by Ike Kligerman Barkley
Text by Mildred F. Schmertz
Photography by Durston Saylor
Midcentury
Dialogue
reimagining a classic
modern manhattan duplex
In Manhattan, Ike Kligerman Barkley renovated a 10-room apartment in a classic mid-20thcentury Modern building for a couple and their four children. Above: The living area is furnished
with an international mix of Modern pieces. FJ Hakimian carpet. Kravet sofa fabric. Larsen
drapery fabric. Right: In the entrance hall, beyond the Giacomo Benevelli sculpture that hangs
on the wall at left, the architects encased the duplex’s stair with panels of etched glass.
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The revised floor plan stresses openness, as in the interconnected living
and dining areas. The wall paneling
was conceived with the furniture designs of Gio Ponti in mind. A plywood screen by Charles and Ray
Eames mixes with Modern furniture
from Finland. Edelman chair leather.
A
rchitect John Ike, of Ike Kligerman Barkley Architects, thought
it was a fine idea when a couple
who had engaged him to renovate a 4,500-square-foot apartment they
had just bought decided that most of its
furniture should be of Scandinavian and
Italian origins and from the mid–20th century. He was not surprised by their request.
“That whole era has been very popular
in the last 10 years, and clients are more
willing to embrace it,” he explains. One
of the reasons, he points out, is that good
French and English furniture has become
so difficult to find that other markets have
opened up.
The apartment is located in a New York
City residential complex built in 1960. Because the building itself is a well-known
and admired specimen of mid-20thcentury Modern urban architecture, the
couple had good reason to furnish their
apartment in a manner that would go with it.
With Ike’s help, they have acquired the best
original pieces they could find from Scandinavia and Italy that belong to or prefigure
that brilliant period of design. They have
also welcomed the work of Charles and
Ray Eames.
Ike Kligerman Barkley reconfigured the
floor plan of the apartment, a duplex, to
create a more open sense of space for the
couple and their four teenage children.
The entrance hall leads to the living and
dining areas, which now flow into each
other uninterrupted by walls. The study
opens from the far end of the living area
to form an L shape and is separated from
the entrance hall by an enclosed stair that
leads to the second-floor bedrooms. The
compact stair, given the rigor of the plan,
could not have been properly redesigned
to swirl or twist splendidly upward; instead
it had to remain as it was. The architects
enclosed it on three sides with a backlit,
satin etched-glass wall that is supported by
an elegant, delicately scaled metal frame.
Silhouetted against the glass are
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two contemporary vases by Lone Skov
Madsen. On the far side of the glass enclosure is the study. The wall itself holds
a television and shelves for pottery and
glassware. The sitting area in the study
includes a circa 1962 teak-frame chair, with
its original brown leather upholstery, by
the Danish cabinetmaker Ludvig Pontoppidan. Johannes Andersen designed the
low table, another Danish product, one
from the 1950s.
A major piece in the clients’ collection
is a chest of drawers designed around 1950
by Gio Ponti, the leading Italian architect
and industrial designer of his day. Prominently placed in the entrance hall in front
of a painted, paneled wall, the root-veneered chest has sculptural raised panels
and brass feet. Panels also appear on the
walls of the living and dining areas, each
designed, according to Kligerman, in the
spirit of Ponti’s furniture.
In the dining area are a 1940s mahog-
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Between the entrance hall, with its 1950s Italian glass-and-mahogany credenza, and the
breakfast room, Ike Kligerman Barkley installed floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, creating the
option of a single continuous volume. The glass door panels are satin-etched for when privacy is needed. Surface downlighting is used in both spaces.
any table and chairs by Finnish furniture
manufacturer Boman. Separating the dining and living areas are two objects: a low
sideboard made of solid flamed birch in
the 1930s and unattributed; and a folded
screen in molded plywood designed in
1946 by Charles and Ray Eames. In 1957
Nils Landberg, the Swedish engraver
and glassware designer, conceived the
goblets that grace the table. Sconces,
designed by Paolo Venini in the 1950s
and made on Murano of amber glass,
softly light both the dining and living
areas in the evening.
The living area features an eclectic mix
of furnishings. At the wall is a banquette
that faces an octagonal rosewood low
table designed in the 1960s by the Brazilian Julio Katinsky. Two circa 1961 armchairs, known as Bwana chairs, display
the Danish architect Finn Juhl’s interest
in primitive, especially African, forms.
The walnut low table with the half-circle chrome legs is a 1960s piece by the
American Paul Tuttle. A single small work
of sculpture, placed below the Venini
sconce, dominates the space. Created by
the Swedish artist Björn Selder, it is called
The Master of Birds.
The most visually exciting wall in the
apartment contains a see-through saltwater aquarium that is the focus of both
the kitchen and the breakfast room. The
latter also holds the furniture of the most
Above: “The saltwater aquarium built into a wall of cabinetry is the focal point of the breakfast room,” John Ike says. The oak table and chairs, which have detailed carved motifs, are
the circa 1910 designs of Eliel Saarinen. The pendant lamp, from Sweden, was made in 1940.
Below: The first-floor plan of the 4,500-square-foot apartment.
courtesy ike kligerman barkley architects pc
1 entrance hall 2 living area 3 Dining ARea
4 study
5 baths
6 staff quarters
7 breakfast room
8 kitchen
Ike Kligerman Barkley
reconfigured the plan to
create a more open sense
of space for the couple
and their four children.
5
6
4
2
7
8
1
3
5
First Floor
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“The couple were active participants
in everything it took to accomplish
their goal,” Barkley recalls.
Left: In the study, glass shelves float from the wall, displaying ceramics designed by
Arne Bang, Jacob Bang and Jorgen Mogensen and glassware designed by Nanny Still. FJ Hakimian carpet. Sony television. Above: Sliding glass doors open the master bedroom to its
own terrace. On the wall, above the sculpture by Peter Chinni, is a desert landscape photograph by Richard Misrach. Roman shade silk, Lee Jofa. Larsen chair fabric.
historic interest—a table and eight chairs
of carved oak designed circa 1910 by Finnish-born architect Eliel Saarinen. (This
was before he left Finland for a life at
Cranbrook that began in 1925 and ended
with his death in 1950.) Given his ultimate distinction as a master architect
who was also a peerless designer of interiors and furniture, such early work has
museum stature and is therefore more
than just collectible. Yet there it is, a
historically noteworthy table and set of
chairs, belonging to a family that uses it
for breakfast every day. Better, perhaps,
to be part of daily life than in public view
behind a velvet rope. “The couple were
active participants in everything it took
to accomplish their goal,” Barkley recalls.
“They were totally engaged and learned
what they needed to know.” Maybe they
deserve the quotidian custody of this particular Saarinen legacy. l
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