Interior, Chelsea
The floor is white, the ceilings are white and walls are white. This house is white. It is part of a still-prevalent design tradition that precludes any form of decoration - Rational Modernism. The oval-shaped column, however, is a deceit. It is packed out to the width of the beams to house a four-inch square structural column, a rainwater pipe and many of the services that pass from floor to floor. Its lack of functionality is further venerated by a recess at the top and bottom, a substitute of the base and capital of a Classical column. This is also part of the Rational Modern tradition, though underneath it is what sculptors call “stick and rag”. The eye in the floor is the key to the cellar.
