” Without a floor there is no unity in design “.
We welcome you to the September 2019 Edition of ” Through Different Eyes “, in which Anne Paul Brinkman talks about the importance of the right floor. You can only see it when you know what you are seeing. How do you learn that?
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Ballroom, Hotel d’Hane Steenhuyse, Ghent. Photo – Marie-José van den Ende
The Right Floor – ” Without a floor there is no unity in design “
They are trampled underfoot and neglected. What is good about a floor where shoe soles wipe-off their daily dirt? Yet the floor is one of the most essential parts of an interior: it is not only the basis on which we stand, but also the basis of a design. Without a floor there is no unity in design. A floor rug can tear down the most beautiful interior, a beautiful floor can lift an entire room.
The energy of the space is located in the floor. Changing is easy, but understanding what you stand on is sometimes difficult. How do you look through 50 years of dirt on a floor if you don’t know what to see or if you can’t understand what it can be? That floor forms an important part of the energy of a building: a historically fitting floor reinforces the value of a building. The right floor determines whether it is right or not. Too rich, too expensive, too poor, too bright… how do you communicate what the right floor looks like? Eighteenth-century interiors of canal houses that have been fitted with parquet floors; it seems so obvious, but it originally hardly existed.
The most important thing is to recognise a floor as it is. Just as life leaves traces on humans, the use leaves traces on the floor. Sometimes with a small clean the dirt can disappear, but the age remains. A weathered floor, the patina, is like an oak matured port or a deep Scottish whisky. Acquired taste. Born in a house, part of a totality that forms a unity. Caution is advised, because often the following applies: designed together, harmonising together. As one body, of which all parts are part. One cannot do without the other. Once the patina is gone, it can never be retrieved.
You can only see it when you know what you are seeing. How do you learn that? By looking at what you think you have known for a long time. Grab a chair, sit down, put your head in your hands and look down and see the wonder of the floor, the splendour of the grain in the wood. Admire the character that the years have left behind and look through different eyes.
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