Written By Julia Freemantle. House & Garden 2012

There aren’t many occasions in life for a ‘do over’. The chance to revisit something and perfect it with the insight offered by hindsight. Yet, designer John Jacob had that exact opportunity with a previous project, made even more poignant by the fact that it was his former home. The Victorian terrace house in Bantry Bay, a much earlier creation by the designer, nevertheless had his signature balance and classical beauty. It was bought by a Joburg businessman for whom John Jacob’s aesthetic really resonated – to the point that he offered the designer a chance to redress the house and change the things he would have done differently.

John Jacob – ever the perfectionist – had definite ideas of what to add, subtract, adjust. ‘I amped up what was already there rather than redesigning the space as such,’ he explains. Expanding on this symbiotic experience, the owner asked him to redo his house in Johannesburg, a project which ran almost in tandem. The owner embraced John Jacob’s famously thorough approach. Originally aiming for a ‘tweak’ or two to his Herbert Baker home in Houghton, the owner found what many clients of John Jacob Interiors discover – that the designer’s ethos is distinctly at odds with doing something by half measures. Adamant that to get design right you have to start with the fundamentals, and perfect these before filling the space, he brought the owner round to his way of working.

John Jacob started the ball rolling by asking the owner to come and spend time in his library in Cape Town. With ‘rich and opulent’ as the owner’s vision for his Houghton home, the designer set about pinpointing exactly what that meant.

‘The idea was to find “good” examples of the style he liked and go from there,’ he explains. The owner took the project fully on board, researching decor and architecture, and amassing a collection of books of his own. ‘I find I attract clients with the same need to understand things as I have,’ comments John Jacob.

The next phase included buying trips abroad – New York, Europe – to achieve the level of sophistication that was so integral to this look. What has come out of this intense run-up is an interior which has just the right amount of luxe: the richness of texture (antiqued mirror, rich fabrics, hand-painted wallpapers, marble) balanced by the subtle and sophisticated use of colour and tempered by a healthy dose of restraint – not to be confused with understatement. Rather than ‘opulence’ in the crude sense of the word, the effect achieved is one of optimum elegance. Although a firm believer in starting from scratch, John Jacob did find merit in a few existing features and the details that could be harnessed to the designer’s intentions were retained and given a face-lift. These included the mouldings in the living room and beams in the roof, which, through a simple colour change, enhanced the overall effect. ‘I upped the ante with some of the architectural components, exaggerating them to turn them into features,’ he says. As with all John Jacob’s projects, every detail has been thought through. Rooms are loosely themed – the entrance hall’s plinths and urns and the charcoal-andblack upstairs living room are a nod to neoclassicism, while the sitting and dining rooms have a conservatory garden-room feel complete with frescos, florals and latticework on the walls. The master bedroom, full-throttle chinoiserie with a bamboo bed and wall-to-wall toile, started with the perfect shade of yellow and grew from there. In a similar fashion, each of the other rooms takes on a palette – the owner wanted to use a variety of colours in the house, so pale bluebell, soft sage and charcoal hold court. The rooms are fullbodied and yet completely harmonious, furnishings and finishes completely in sync. Fabrics from S|H, John Jacob’s collaborative range with Hertex Fabrics were also used extensively, contributing the cohesion.

Even the garden was given the designer’s signature treatment — overt colour removed, form resolved. This is what he’s good at – in layering and filling a space, he paradoxically refines it down to its most important elements.

Written By Paul Duncan. Style Icons, 2011.

John Jacob Zwiegelaar - I don’t particularly want to tell my own story. I would struggle to define my own style or aesthetic preferences because all the work I’ve done today has been for others and not me.

People creating interiors for themselves are forced to confront the notion of who they are aesthetically; this hasn’t been my path to date. I see myself as, say, the ‘facilitator’ of other peoples’ dream. It’s the idea of creating environments that reflect my clients’ value systems that excites me. I think there’s a massive difference between doing a project for yourself, and the end project being interesting and thorough. This has been a skill that I’ve been trying to develop over the last few years. The houses in this book are all results of my clients’ desires and their aesthetic value systems. The reason I used the words ‘value system’ and not ‘taste’ is because peoples’ taste is defined by what they’ve been exposed to. Their aesthetic value system is something much deeper. On an intrinsic, emotive level, do they respond to masculine or feminine lines, traditional or modern values, dark or light colours, contrasting or quiet, muted spaces, orders or chaos, and so on? The references my clients bring me and what they end up with often bare no relation to each other! This is because their tastes generally develop and change by the time I’ve finish a project with them. However, what is key to all my work is that you always see the underlying      value system of the client coming through. I’m able to pinpoint their core theme and translate it into an aesthetic idea I would hope with a certain amount of relevance and resonance. At John Jacob Interiors I create spaces which are expansive in their emotive intent. They’re spaces in which people won’t feel oppressed. My focus is emotive rather than cerebral. Like others working here I don’t feel hemmed in by a suffocating aesthetic heritage. You don’t have to maintain an old order; there isn’t one to maintain. This is the new world and it’s all about designing with emotion and feeling. We have no rules and people in other places find our spontaneity compelling and exiting. It’s what the world is looking for – and it underpins what I do. I consider myself to be more of an interior architect than a decorator. I draw the insides of a building, defining the ceilings, doorways, architraves and so on, constructing an architectural idea that articulates the spaces. The decoration forms another layer of information that echoes that same idea. So everything I do is underpinned by rhythm, order and clarity of line; decoration is one thing but design concept and idea are way more important to me. What I mean is this: there is design, and there is decoration. I really believe that it’s important to distinguish between the two. For me, the former is the more important. When people walk into something I’ve done, they often say that stylistically it’s so different from other projects. I’ve been working on. That’s true but only from a decorating perspective. Design for me is all about line. So whatever aesthetic language I’m working in, whether it’s neo-classical or post-modern farm style, what’s going on behind the scenes as it were is governed by a very strict code that uses line to create order and therefore peace. When i walk into a space, I see chaos and want to create order. Creating soft and fluffy isn’t my natural strength. So my projects actually are all uniform. The use of vertical proportion, symmetry and rhythm to create order – is in a way extremely spiritual and timeless.  What’s starting to happen globally is that people are feeling the need quite naturally, quite organically, to embrace this. The environments I’m creating are therefore expansive because they allow people to breath in them. They’re easy to relate to. They satisfy the pursuit of peace and calm in a frantic world. There’s a much-sought after humanity in them. As a creative voice, I want to express something interesting and unique. This is it.  I don’t want to follow trends. At Queens Road you can see beyond the superficial decorative layer to the rigid formal grid that’s been set up beneath its surface.  In the sitting room for example, there’s an almost casual order to the space. On either side of the fireplace mirrored panels express a vertical proportion, so do the curtains alongside them. Even the stacked pictures are locked into this grid which the black and white colour scheme reinforces. The decoration in a way is irrelevant: the picture could be antique Flemish Landscapes or contemporary monochromatic photographs. I’m using them simply as a device to counter asymmetry and disharmony. I want order, and that’s why, for me, the underlying design always comes first. A house in Houghton is another example where I’ve set up the decoration to complement the architectural proportions and to express the vertical. In the entrance hall I’ve used a lot of black to articulate the architecture. The design of the light hanging above the hall table makes reference to the criss-cross detail in the doors in the background; it sets up a rhythm which blends the different facets of the space, accentuating the height and proportion of the columns in the adjacent elevation. This rhythm and this incredibly restrained line are so simple as and I think that’s new and exciting-even though everything in the room may be very old fashioned to look at. A client can come to me with a passion for Africa and another who may want to vomit at the notion of it in their personal environment. Its not my role to judge but to make it work and to make it interesting. My base may be here in South Africa but I see myself in a global context and my references amongst architects, designers and gardeners abroad are huge and varied. Ana while I look to people working all over the world, what I see is not necessarily the culture context in which they work and the decoration that goes with that. Of the people I admire the one thing I guess they all have in common is their firm grasp of architecture-its principles, its history, its context and its decoration. In the end you have to know the rules to be able to break them. The quality of the creative input here as good as anywhere else. We have incredible intellectual capital in South Africa. And that makes us attractive to the rest of the world. From a decorative perspective Im inspired by the amazing richness and diversity of craft in this country. Local influences are important and you can’t escape them, and the hugeness of the South African landscape does inspire you and its colouring is stupendously beautiful and you can’t not be affected by it. All of this is important to my work but it’s only creating a superficial decorative layer. My work has a contemporary local aesthetic but it’s produced in a global context.

Written By Julia Freemantle. Condé Nast House and Garden, December 2011.

While designing the look of this UK home, John Jacob Zwiegelaar drew on the age-old practice of idolising the out of the ordinary as inspiration. As such, he conjured an aesthetic which includes elements of the client’s South African heritage.

Here, in the context of London living, African artefacts and textures take on the effect of the exotic and precious. If we look at history, rarity has always been equated with beauty, explains Zwiegelaar. With this as a starting point, the designer chose to focus on an aspect that would provide a foil of its surroundings. ‘When I design a space, I like to bear in mind what will stand out as significant in the settings, says Zwiegelaar. In Joburg or Cape Town for example, a bronze African bust or string of brightly coloured beads is commonplace, expected even. But here they take on an otherness and a sense of mystery. The clients have a home in South Africa, too where they spend part of the year – one that is completely different to this smart London house with its understated sophistication. ‘Their Johannesburg home is a lot more traditional, more feminine, says Zwiegelaar. This is in part the reason for an absolute lack of frivolity or fancy in this newer project, as the designer consciously took a radical departure from what they already had. Aside from a few pieces that the owners wanted to move to their new house, there is no resemblance in style and the London home offers an opportunity to live differently in this part of the world. This project too, was a different way of working with Zwiegelaar’s customary method.  While he normally gets involved from as early as the building stages, this house’s shell was complete down to the cornicing and fully fitted bathroom and kitchen and only in need of decorating once he came on board. Far from a licence to do whatever he wanted though, the architecture of this seemingly blank canvas still needed to be tied into the decor. I’m an adamant believer that there should be a synergy between design and decor. The decoration  of a space should contextualise the architectural detail and vice versa, says Zwiegelaar. In this case the modern structure, although complete, was devoid of any defining characteristics so he set about adding layers. ‘There weren’t enough architectural elements to give the decorating meaning, he explains. The more surface level aspects were also particularly bland. To counteract this, the designer laid a grey sisal carpet over the shiny cream travertine and onto cream walls he painted a sophisticated but subtle taupe. Next to go was the yellow tone of the timber staircase, and in its place,  came a richer deeper stain, in keeping with the new layers of complexity throughout. Zwiegelaar’s design signatures were brought into the mix at the decorating stages – tailored, customised and contemporary pieces give insight into the level to which he went to effect the staggering transformation of a generic shell into a bespoke and luxurious home. Tactile materials too add complexity and pieces in bone, hide and wood keep the  scheme interesting. The home is geared for entertaining – two levels of living spaces offer separate areas to drink, eat read , lounge and watch movies. The foyer on the entry level give way to a kitchen and open- plan dining room and’ kitchen lounge’ as well as a super-chic sitting room, all of which look onto the lush expanse of groomed garden – a treasure in London’s urban landscape. Down a level is a cocoon – like bar and cinema lounge, divided by geometric wood screens designed by Zwiegelaar to divide up the shapeless space. ‘I’ve used the screens in a few places in the house to add that sense of architectural articulation I was looking to enhance, he says. He has subtly given each living area its own personality and palette, the colour too translating the honesty of an African – inspired aesthetic – simple hues communicate clearly the strength and elemental quality of the design. The purpose of each too, is conveyed through the mood Zwiegelaar’s created in each with his colour and object choices. The kitchen lounge is the most casual of three – light and airy with splashes of fresh apple green. Here one is encouraged to look out and onto the magnificent garden with its sprawling lawn and statuesque trees.  Conducive to relaxed dining and socialising, the space leads out onto a further outdoor sitting area for when the weather obliges. The sitting room – on the same floor – sophisticated and formal in tones of grey, charcoal and black with occasional touches of cherry red. ‘Within the second level living spaces I consciously kept the palette monochromatic, so as to allow the intense green of the garden to pop. The shade is so powerful that the room can handle the lack of colour, says Zwiegelaar. The lower level’s bar and movie lounge is the moodiest – the rough wooden objects are offset by glossy – black surfaces and create an intriguing sense of tension. The accent colour here is a spectrum of golds – from deep bronze to the sunshine yellow in a graphic bar side artwork. Zwiegelaar’s affinity for symmetry too, is evident in his careful balance of customised lamps and objects, which contribute to the feeling of precision and polish. Throughout the space in fact, is a sense of the well thought, so characteristic of Zwiegelaar’s style.