Skye Maunsell brings simplicity and serenity to a Barcelona flat
'The lift sets the scene,’ says Skye Maunsell of Barcelona-based Skye Maunsell Studio. The tiny Fifties circular capsule of dark polished wood and brass is whisking us up to the attico on the top floor – a duplex flat recently renovated by British-born architectural interior designer Skye and Catalan industrial designer Jordi Veciana. ‘It is quite special. It’s as if the architect wanted to be playful, creating an unexpected contrast within this linear, rationalist building.’
The architect she is referring to is Francesc Mitjans. The Barcelona native helped to re-dress his city’s skyline in the Fifties and Sixties with elegant apartment buildings for a Catalan bourgeoisie increasingly keen to swap central Barcelona for the leafy residential uptown streets of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, where Spanish villas once lined the boulevards leading up to the green hills of Tibidabo.
The apartment belongs to a Catalan couple who recently moved back to Barcelona with their grown-up children. ‘We wanted somewhere in Sant Gervasi, because we have friends here and my parents lived here,’ the wife explains. ‘We were also hoping to find a place with lots of light, a terrace and somewhere to park.’
A friend living in the building heard the owners of the attico had recently died. ‘My friend told the team handling the family’s affairs that we were interested. Three months later, they called and said I could go and see it,’ she says. ‘I loved it right away.’ An unusual, very private selling process followed, in which the representatives of the previous owners set a figure and invited offers at the asking price or below. ‘They didn’t want a bidding war, and felt the apartment should go to another family who would look after it. We waited two months – I was so nervous, I lost five kilos.’
Having worked with some big-name Spanish interior designers in the past, the owner decided she wanted something cleaner in the duplex apartment. Her brother – the founder and owner of a lighting design company – recommended Skye and Jordi. ‘He knew that they would keep the essence of the apartment,’ she says.
The duo are known for their subtle hand. ‘We don’t overdesign,’ Skye explains. ‘We take what is there and make it better.’ She worked for Richard Hywel Evans of Studio RHE in London before moving to Barcelona in her mid-twenties. Skye and Jordi’s individual studios have been working together for 10 years and now collaborate on 80 per cent of their projects. Their conversion of some industrial warehouses into a 1,000-square-metre co-working and event space called Montoya in Poblenou – Barcelona’s Shoreditch – is their biggest joint venture to date (aside, that is, from their 2015 wedding). ‘It has become a great showcase for what we do,’ says Jordi. ‘This Mitjans apartment was immediately interesting to us,’ recalls Skye. ‘Though very dark, we could see its potential.’ ‘Its soul had been smothered,’ Jordi continues. ‘So we peeled back the layers to reveal the original proportions and then relayered.’
The original herringbone oak floors were restored and extended to run throughout, using oak that had been stripped out of the flat opposite during its renovation. Smoked-oak sliding doors – a nod to the original dark wood in the building’s lobby and lift – help the space to flow and the walls (other than in the library and kitchen) are painted in Little Greene’s ‘Flint’. ‘It’s a warm but streamlined canvas that allows us to be more playful elsewhere,’ says Skye.
Skye and Jordi rescued two of the flat’s original Fifties pedestal basins – using a voluptuous baby-blue one for the cloakroom and a pale pink version for the main bedroom’s en-suite bathroom, all elegance and femininity now combined with putty-pink terrazzo marble walls. The tiled kitchen ceiling has also been restored, replacing any broken or lost celadon tiles with spares pinched from the lavanderia (utility room) ceiling next door. The kitchen was central to the brief. ‘Food is everything in Barcelona,’ says the owner. She and her husband both like to cook for their big family and their friends, and this space has a practical, industrial feel.
Four buttercup-yellow Vitra chairs and a circular Knoll table were bought by the owner 20 years ago. ‘My family has always been interested in design,’ she says. ‘My father had a light manufacturing company and was forever travelling to Milan. I grew up with furniture by Charles Eames.’ A vintage Fifties wall lamp with an orange metal shade in the library is another old friend: ‘It doesn’t provide much light, but I love the colour.’ The only room with original panelling, the library has walls and ceiling in a bespoke ‘Café con Leche’ paint. ‘It’s very calm. Very beautiful,’ says Skye.
Much of the rest of the mid-century furniture and lighting has been sourced by Skye and Jordi, while the aged-oak dining-room table – with wide legs at right angles to one another, and a slim, elegant top – was designed and made at Skye Maunsell Studio.
An integrated, almost invisible, lighting scheme was sourced from specialist Erco to highlight the owners’ not insignificant art and sculpture collection (which was installed after the apartment was photographed for this article). This includes works by Antoni Tàpies, Anthony Caro and Jorge Oteiza among others. Much of the collection was inherited from her late father-in-law, one of Barcelona’s major cultural philanthropists – a Catalan Rockefeller who was president of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics Organising Committee and the Fundació MACBA, where he brought in Richard Meier to design the building.
One of the crucial elements for the husband was the creation of a bodega off the entrance hall for storing wine. ‘He loves wine and the collection is now split between here and our cabin in the Costa Brava,’ explains his wife. The other essential, for him, was the sauna on the second-floor roof terrace. ‘He travels for work and likes to unwind with a daily sauna,’ she continues. ‘When I come home, I feel so happy. I am building the layers and adding my own essence, no?’ she says, looking towards Skye for confirmation. ‘But I am doing it slowly, little by little’.
Skye Maunsell Studio: skyemaunsell.com Jordi Veciana: jordiveciana.com
