The eclectic aesthetic of Johannesburg couturier Howard Green resolves antique and modern designs in his graceful but offbeat heritage apartment
Howard Green’s love of gilt antique French furniture lives happily alongside midcentury and contemporary design classics such as Tonic Design’s Alberto Coffee Table and the Bouroullec brothers’ Facet Couch for Ligne Roset. The lamp to the left of the tapestry is by John Stefanidis.
Image: Production Sven Alberding/bureaux.co.za Photographs Greg Cox/bureaux.co.za
Johannesburg couturier Howard Green is well-known for the exquisite detail of his gowns, from their hand-stitched beadwork to the perfection of their fit.
“We make gowns that fit the body like a mould,” he said.
“We measure and make them from head to toe.”
He is known for being a perfectionist, a stickler for craftsmanship, and he’s prepared to lavish time and care on a design until he’s happy with it. More than anything, he serves a particular idea of beauty.
“Anybody in this business must have a deep love of really beautiful things,” he said.
It’s an ethos that spills over into his home, a beautifully proportioned apartment in Killarney’s Whitehall Court.
Whitehall Court is arguably the city’s finest example of neoclassical colonial architecture. It was built in the early 1920s for maverick New York entrepreneur Isidore William Schlesinger, who made a vast fortune in SA from insurance, film, property and hotels. He also built the majestic Polana Hotel in Maputo. Schlesinger’s own vast apartment in Whitehall took up half of one level.
“I didn’t know this building existed,” Green said, “until I was driving past one day and I thought I was having a heart attack.”
That was 25 years ago. His apartment is a subdivided part of Schlesinger’s original, which had a sense of scale and grandeur unmatched in the building, and its details such as the intricate plasterwork finishes are rare.
“You don’t find features like this often,” said Green.
A Guéridon table by Jean Prouvé in the lounge.
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Philippe Starck’s Pratfall Chair forms part of the living room’s dazzling array of classic and contemporary design. Its partner is in the bedroom.
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The interior of his apartment more than lives up to the promise of the pristine white exterior of the building. He’s built up a remarkable collection of furniture and art over a quarter of a century, painstakingly selecting design pieces that have struck him. Nothing for Green is purely utilitarian.
“I’d rather live in a bare room than have something I don’t like, quite honestly.”
Green has been collecting circular antique mirrors for about 20 years. He was first struck by them when he saw some at the restaurant downstairs from fashion designer Nicole Farhi’s shop in London. They share wall space with a Fornasetti plate, part of a larger collection that is not displayed. The Facet Chair is by the Bouroullec brothers for Ligne Roset and the Driade Side Table is by Patricia Urquiola and matches the chair in the spare room.
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Whitehall Court’s formal inner courtyard is part of its appeal as one of Johannesburg’s few genuinely impressive examples of neoclassical Edwardian architecture. For many years it was Killarney’s only heritage building.
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The poise that immediately strikes you as you walk through door is deceptive. The rooms might at first appear to be an image of comprehensive perfection, and at one time the apartment was a gilt shrine to French antiques — unsurprisingly given Green’s Francophile tendencies and his immersion in couture — but now its eclecticism is quite staggering.
“I’m no longer really crazy about French antiques, but I like a little touch. It gives the place a bit of a lift.”
In the sitting room, on the left, an Oblique Bookshelf by Marcel Wanders for Moooi displays some of Green’s books on couture. Other contemporary pieces such as Konstantin Grcic’s Diana sheet-metal table for Classicon rub shoulders with Eero Saarinen’s Tulip table and armchair for Vitra. They are balanced on the far side of the Facet Sofa by the Bouroullec brothers for Ligne Roset by a French gilt antique chair and tapestry.
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The furnishings in any given room are likely to veer from gilt antique French pieces through mid-century-modern classics and then take in contemporary designer pieces, too.
“If you have a look around here, you can see nothing matches,” Green observed.
In the sitting room, for example, modernist classics such as Jean Prouvé’s Guéridon Table and Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Table and Arm Chair for Knoll rub shoulders with a few persistent French antiques on the one hand and contemporary designs such as Moooi’s Oblique Bookshelf by Marcel Wanders and others by the Bouroullec Brothers and Philippe Starck on the other. There’s even contemporary South African design, such as a Tonic coffee table.
The kitchen-cum-dining area is home to a steel-topped EM Table by Jean Prouvé. At the head is an Anthony Chair, also by Prouvé. The other chairs were bought at auction.
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In the entrance hall, you are greeted by a powerful spot painting by Damien Hirst. The armchairs are Italian and the table belongs to a set of Swedish origin, which he bought at auction.
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Green’s restless eye is what resolves the disparate elements.
“It’s actually quite hard to get a room together,” he mused.
Of the sitting room hesaid: “I look at this room and almost think there’s too much stuff.”
Then he reflected: “I think the yellow rug really pulled this whole room together, at last.”
Later, he expressed concern that the bedroom, which he thought he’d perfected, might be too empty. For Green, it’s a matter of constant refining until “the place feels like that’s how you want things to be”.
“I love things that are a little bit offbeat.”
The Damien Hirst spot painting that greets you in the entrance hall should be a clue an unconventional sensibility is at work.
Various items are displayed on the wooden table in the bedroom, including a Jielde lamp. In front of it is a Standard Chair by Jean Prouvé. The artwork is by Catalan artist Joan Miró.
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Surrounding the door from the kitchen leading towards the bedroom, the built-in shelves are home to Green’s collection of interior-design magazines, which he can’t bear to part with, and accessories, including examples from his extensive collection of Piero Fornasetti ceramics.
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Perhaps the item that best captures the spirit of Green’s home, however, is the pair of Light Shade Shades by Jurgen Bey for Moooi. There’s one in the entrance hall and one in the living room. Their cylindrical mirrored surface hides a surprise.
“When you look at it from the outside without the light on, it looks very modern and simple,” Howard explained.
But when you switch it on, the mirror turns translucent and reveals an old-fashioned chandelier inside: a ghostly classicism inside the modern exterior. The flat itself might also be the opposite: offbeat and modern inside a classical envelope.
In the generously proportioned bathroom, a Tom Vac Swivel Chair by Ron Arad for Vitra and a Baby Rocket stool by Eero Aarnio make up its sparse furnishings.
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On the other side of the Poltrona Frau’s Jackie Bed by Jean-Marie Massaud, the side table is by Patricia Urquiola. The chair in the foreground is a Standard Chair by Jean Prouvé.
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Ultimately, for Green, his home is not about an idea or a concept.
“It’s just about living with things that give you joy.
“It’s not done to impress anyone because there’s no-one to impress. It’s just to be happy in your space. To just look at things and love them over and over again. Because I do.”