<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"View Slideshow\n\nPeople always ask me how I begin,\" says Manhattan-based designer Victoria Hagan. \"A space always speaks to me with a direction.\" In this case, it was the connection between the interior and the site. Located on Fifth Avenue, the duplex apartment boasts uninterrupted views of Central Park. Best of all, the space is at treetop level. The windows are large and loftlike\u2014that feature allowed park views to become their own canvases around the room.\n\nThough the prewar apartment endured a complete renovation, Hagan and architect Oscar Shamamian (a partner in Ferguson Shamamian Rattner) inherited architecture that inspired them. The renowned postmodern architect Robert A. M. Stern had redesigned it in the seventies. \"What I loved about the apartment was that it had a minimal quality\u2014we wanted to enhance that,\" says Hagan. \"We actually stripped it down more, so it would have the feeling of a loft, which, with having park views on Fifth Avenue, is the best of both worlds.\"\n\nIt was an especially poignant exercise for Shamamian. \"I studied with Bob Stern and also worked for him,\" he says. Shamamian recognized certain elements that he wanted to respect and continue to employ, \"like the sense of space having visual continuity and dynamic circulation.\" He and Hagan wanted to maintain that but to make the spaces more discrete. \"They had flowed into one another more literally,\" he explains. \"It was the lack of detail that we kept\u2014no decorative moldings.\"\n\n\"The space demanded a modern sensibility, but we didn't want it to be cold,\" says Hagan.\n\nThe existing architecture was more like sculpture. Hagan and her team shifted that sculptural focus to the staircase, the floors, the cabinetry, the furniture and the art. The handrail in the entrance hall, originally a minimal brass one and noteworthy during the seventies, was replaced with textured steel to make a stronger statement. The lower landings of the stairs take the shape of platforms, which hold objects\u2014a playful reference to the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The floor of the entrance hall is blue English limestone. This juxtaposition speaks volumes about the owner, who is involved in real estate development. \"I always look for a client's excitement,\" says Hagan. \"I like to present options, have them make a decision and follow that lead. I don't think all clients would be open to the surreal narrative of the vintage lawnmower on the staircase and the limestone flooring. To me it's simple and fun.\"\n\nThe client is also an art collector, so a minimalist backdrop for his collection of twentieth-century paintings and furniture was essential. \"The materials have an organic quality,\" Hagan says. \"The colors I used were white, brown and khaki green, in a variety of textures that were inspired by the park.\" Wool was used for some of the draperies, a combination of velvet and leather was chosen for a pair of chairs, and the living room furniture rests on a sisal-and-jute area rug. Philippe Anthonioz, the sculptor and designer, was commissioned to do hand-sculpted bronze drapery hardware. \"I think the space demanded a modern sensibility, but my client didn't want it to be cold,\" explains Hagan. The living room is a cosmopolitan mix of antique, primitive and modern pieces. A circa 1900 Ethiopian chief's chair rests near a forties French commode. A pair of Gio Ponti chairs flank the fireplace. A bronze seal from the City of New York hangs over the mantel, and a late-nineteenth-century French mahogany, steel and brass tall case clock prevents the apartment from being a sterile exercise in modernity.\n\nFor Hagan, the challenge of a dining room lies in the dual task of making it comfortable for entertaining and evoking a sense of drama. To create atmosphere, she drew inspiration from the client's April Gornik canvas Viagra, which she made the focus of the room. That work and a smaller one by Milton Avery hang on gallery-white plaster walls. Hagan painted one wall gunmetal gray to offset the smoky palette of the Gornik painting. \"It provides a strong backdrop at the end of the room and balances the artwork,\" she explains. For texture, a wax finish that gives a stonelike effect was applied. Hagan, who has a fondness for natural materials, incorporated the client's stone-top dining table, which rests on period Italian stone bases. The 1935 Donald Deskey rosewood chairs covered in gray flannel are a fitting accompaniment to the room's sleek, contemporary style. Still, she couldn't resist throwing in a curveball by installing an amber-colored Venetian chandelier. \"That's another example of presenting an option to my client that I thought he might not like,\" she says, \"but he loved it. It reflects the subtle organic theme of the apartment.\"\n\nTucked in between the dining room and the living room is the library. To separate it from those two rooms, Hagan installed wall-to-wall carpeting. Adhering to the game plan to have a sculptural dialogue throughout the apartment, the ebony-stained cabinetry is set into the wall. A circa 1940 Ren\u00E9 Gabriel oak armchair was selected for its strong architectural quality and graphic sense. The Asian low table is an antique bamboo piece. Again, there is a contrast of materials: chocolate-brown suede on the sofa and linen chenille on a chair. A Billy Baldwin slipper chair by the fireplace is covered in satin. The mantel-free fireplace was already in existence. \"There was a lot of discussion about what the mantel should be, but we all agreed that we liked the fact that there wasn't one,\" says Hagan.\n\n\"I see the master bedroom as a retreat from other things,\" she comments. \"It should be comfortable. There should always be a good reading chair. Bedside tables need to be a certain height to make people happy, but you don't want them to look too stereotypical.\" For this master bedroom, Hagan designed two styles of tables, both of which were inspired by pieces from the forties and made of rosewood, a popular material of the era. This room has a more straight-forward modernist point of view than the others. The fifties lamps are made with gilt wire. The Lucite-and-chrome desk is from a Tribeca boutique. Opposite the tubular desk chair, designed by Donald Deskey half a century ago, is a Mackintosh-style chair.\n\nWhether the rooms have varying styles of twentieth-century furniture or a blend of modern pieces and antiques, they all have a common thread: They form a relationship with the views of the park and the architecture to arrive at what Hagan calls \"graphic rhythm.\" \"It works well in three dimensions, but also in two,\" she observes. \"You can photograph it in slices, and there's composition and balance to it. The juxtaposition of the scale, the volume of space and the large architecture with park views give the apartment a graphic quality.\"\n\nWhat it took to achieve that harmony, Hagan insists, was the right team, which included Shamamian, Hagan's design associate Monica Malone and, of course, the client. \"It took less than a year to complete the project, and if the owner hadn't been so involved and supportive, it never would have been done so quickly,\" says Hagan. \"This apartment is very much a reflection of his own personal style.\"\n\nThe client was more than an active participant. He lived in the apartment during the construction. \"That allowed me to keep an eye on what was going on,\" he says. \"Even through the dust, I was able to see where things stood and make modifications along the way.\" He did, however, have the advantage of having worked with Shamamian on a previous project. And Hagan was a close friend. \"It was a true collaboration between Victoria and myself,\" says the client. \"Because we're such good friends, we could talk in the car and then shop, and then talk in the car some more.\"\n\nBut friendship was not the deciding factor in his choice of a designer. \"I like the clean lines of her interiors, the ease of acceptance of the space,\" he says. \"You sort of flow into them, and nothing is overpowering. It becomes an intellectual dissection of the work because everything is so subtle. You walk in, and there's a wow factor. Then you look at the different areas, and they're strong enough to stand on their own. They're humorous enough on their own, too, but when it's all put together, it's not overwhelming.\"\n\nAnd the beat goes on for Victoria Hagan and her client\u2014she recently completed his country house."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/hagan-article-102001>