Why Mosaics Are Suddenly on Every Interior Designer's Mood Board
If ever there were a sign that minimalism is over, it might be the red-and-gold interiors at the recently opened Printemps in New York. With its Red Room featuring a glittering 'red river' mosaic floor, the new department store draws visitors in with its opulent, maximalist luxury.
To design the space, interior designer Laura Gonzalez was tasked with reimagining One Wall Street into a shopping experience luxurious enough to tempt shoppers down to the Financial District. So, she commissioned long-time collaborators and mosaic masters Pierre Mesguich and Kautar Larif of MesguichMosaik KLD to embed the floor with a winding collage of ruby and crimson to match the walls originally designed by muralist Hildreth Meière in 1931. The project—years in the making—was ambitious. The result? Well, let's just say that ever since it opened in late March, images of the Red Room and its elaborate mosaics have flooded social media feeds and interior design websites alike.
The mosaic-clad Red Room designed by Laura Gonzalez for Printemps New York.
Photo: Gieves Anderson
Of course, mosaics haven't always been met with such enthusiasm. 'When I started 40 years ago, mosaic was not popular,' Mesguich notes. 'It was considered old-fashioned.'
What's behind the sudden interest, then? Perhaps the increasingly technological world has something to do with it. Mesguich compares our current craving for craftsmanship to the way Art Nouveau emerged in the early 1900s as a response to the Industrial Revolution. 'Today we have the same huge progress in technology.'
Francis Sultana, a London-based interior and furniture designer who recently completed a villa in France with eight mosaic bathrooms in partnership with Mesguich, puts it this way: 'Mosaics are more than decoration; they can be artisanal and yet be art.'
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