For the Library: a guide to the interior designers to watch in 2021

The year 2020 has, let’s face it, been one where we’ve spent a lot of time staring at the walls. And no, that’s not a figure of speech. The question now, of course is: do we still like those walls? It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that, for the most part, the answer to this question will be “no, actually, not really”. If there’s one thing to turn a person off their own interior scheme, after all, it’s being trapped inside it for 365 days. But where to go from here? Clearly, we’re in need of some inspiration.

Luckily – clairvoyantly, even – the venerable coffee table book publisher Phaidon is gracing us, this month, with By Design, a new compendium-style offering that surveys more than 100 of the most exciting, original, sensitive and boundary-pushing interior designers currently working across the globe. Though the focus here is very much on the “contemporary”, the wide range of talents represented here is a fine demonstration of just how wild and stylistically diverse the field is in 2021. Within its pages, you’ll find everything from louche eclectism (Milan’s Dimorestudio) to textured minimalism (Sydey’s Hare + Klein) to fantastical, palatial spaces (Jaipur’s Marie-Anne Oudejans). 

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of practical ideas in here too. In fact, many of the designers you’ll find within these pages are distinguished by their focus on “experience”, says commissioning editor William Norwich in the book’s introduction. “In other words,” he writes, “how spaces are experienced; how they affect, much more than how they are perceived critically.” That means that, next to involving, homey commercial spaces from the likes of London’s Martin Brudnizki and Paris’s Joseph Dirand, we’re invited into private residences full of wabi sabi imperfections and lived-in charm. 

The appealing eclecticism of By Design is the result of its editors’ ambitious approach: to draw up the list of talents to include, they consulted with over 90 nominators – critics, designers and tastemakers across the globe – from novelist and T Magazine editor Hanya Yanagahira to the design curator Aric Chen and super stylist Rachel Zoe. Inevitably, then, the books is not so much a document of a particular movement or direction in contemporary interiors, but an inspiring testimony to the many possibilities that lie therein. As a sourcebook for your upcoming renovation, it comes highly recommended. 

Images, top to bottom: Kit Kemp – Hyde Park Gate, private residence, London, UK, 2020, photo by Simon Brown, courtesy of Firmdale Hotels; Linda Boronkay – Soho House Mumbai, Private Members’ Club, Bar Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, 2018, photo by Simon Brown, Courtesy of Linda Boronkay; Kelly Wearstler – Beverly Hills Residence, Private Residence, Powder Room Vestibule, Beverly Hills, California, USA, 2018, photo by The Ingalls, Courtesy of Kelly Wearstler; Martin Brudnizki Design Studio – The Beekman Hotel, Atrium New York City, New York, USA, 2015, photo by James McDonald, Courtesy of Martin Brudnizki Design Studio.

By Design: The World’s Best Contemporary Interior Designers, Phaidon, 2021

Interiors: the Greatest Rooms of the Century, Phaidon, 2019